
' jj 



Glass Jl5J 
Book. 
Cojjyright N! 




COP1RJGHT DEPOStT. 



c 









History of 



Corporal 
Fess Wkitaker 









►CtAH I 23 J ? 



r 
i 



COPYRIGHT 191S 
FESS WHITAKER 



JAN -2 1919 \S 



The Standard Printing Co. 

incorporated 

Louisville, Kentucky 




CORPORAL FESS WHITAKER 
February 12. 1898, to August 22. 1904 



AUTHOR'S PREFACE 



AMONG the people of Letcher County no other 
man has so remarkable history as Fess Whit- 
aker; none other is so well worthy of being 
carefully studied by all who find pleasure in the past 
history and particularly by Letcher's own people. In 
the winning - of friends he stands first; in the upbuild- 
ing of the county his influence has been strongly ex- 
erted; as a soldier on the battlefield he stands firm. 
While the moonshiners and ku-klux were provoking 
the country in my early boyhood as though led by an 
inscrutable hand were finding their way over the 
mountains and preparing to establish themselves as 
the outguard of civilization that they might become 
the possessors of all the sons of Letcher County, the 
good mountain mothers, almost unaided, not only 
stood like a wall of fire to forbid such conduct of the 
men, but made good their footing, which soon after- 
ward made their loving Christian homes a pleasure. 

The strong characteristics of the men and women 
who, with unexampled courage, endurance and patri- 
otic devotion achieved so much with so little means 
and in the face of obstacles so great, could but impress 
themselves upon the people of Letcher County. From 



History of Corporal Fess Whitaker 



the first mothers they have escaped that sign of 
Athenian decadence, the restless desire to be ever 
hearing' and telling some new thing to show what 
good people Letcher County has. 

This book claims to be but an epitome of the His- 
tory of Fess Whitaker; but it will be found to contain 
a general account, to which interest he has taken by 
an uneducated man. special and particular incidents, 
etc. The adult or educated mind will read far more 
between the lines than is found in the book. The 
author trusts that he has imparted to the short stories 
something of that spirit which should be impressed 
upon the people whose minds and character are still 
in the formative state — an admiration of their own 
country and a pride in its past, the surest guarantees 
that in the future her fair fame will be enhanced, her 
honor maintained and her progress in all right lines 
be steadily and nobly promoted. 



HISTORY OF CORPORAL 
FESS WHITAKER 



FESS WHITAKER was born June 17, 1880, in 
Knott County, Kentucky. Knott County is lo- 
cated in the mountains of Kentucky between 
the Big Sandy River and the north fork of the Ken- 
tucky River. There are no railroads in Knott County, 
but there is lots of fine coal (what is known as the 
Amburgey seam), and lots of fine timber. Hindman 
is the county seat. Knott County has fine churches 
and schools and good roads, and, no doubt, the best 
farming county in the mountains. 

When I was only six years old my father swapped 
farms with Tood Stamper and put the Whit- 
akers together in Letcher County and the Stampers 
together in Knott County. My mother was old Kelly 
Hogg's daughter, and in time of slavery my Grand- 
father Hogg swapped a foolish negro to Mr. Mullins, 
of Knott County, for a good farm worth $10,000 to- 
day, known as the Black Sam Francis farm now. Mr. 
Mullins thought lots of his little negro and called him 
his Shade, meaning that he could rest and the negro 
could work. But when the greatest man that ever has 
been elected President of the United States of Amer- 
ica, Abraham Lincoln, Said slavery was not right and 



s History of Corporal Fess Whitaker 

released the shackles from four million slaves, Mr. 
Mullins lost his farm and his little negro "Sam Hogg 
Mullins," too. 

When f was six years old my parents went back to 
Rockhouse, a tributary to the north fork of the Ken- 









1 m mt 








-a* ■ Til 

Vp ,4 mf I t --r -* 




1 




^^^^•PPfcWSIH". *^ 







REV. JIM T. WHITAKER 
Pastor Indian Bottom Church 

tucky River, now one mile from the little town of 
Blackey, or the old Indian Bottom Church. The 
same year that my parents moved to Rockhouse my 
father, who was the late I. I). Whitaker, Jr., died. He 
was the son of S. A. Whitaker, known so well in Ken- 
tucky and Missouri. After the death of my father 



Kentucky Mountain Life 



my mother was left with eight poor little orphan 
children to raise, six boys and two g'irls. The boys' 
names are very funny; they are, according - to name 
and age : Fred and Fess, Little and Less, Gid and Jim, 
and all the rest. And all the rest were the two girls, 
Julia and Susan. 

My mother was left with a very good farm of about 
125 acres, and the Rockhouse Creek ran right through 
the center of it. During those days every spring we 
had what was known as big tides. The late Bill Wright 
was the greatest logger and splash-dam man in the 
mountains of Kentucky. The next year after my 
father died Mr. Wright had rive big splash-dams in 
the head of Rockhouse and Mill Creek and had 
between ten thousand and fifteen thousand big poplar 
saw logs in the dams, and when he turned those five 
dams loose there was no land or fence left below. So 
that same spring he cleaned our farm on both sides of 
Rockhouse and in about ten days here he came with 
twenty-eight big, strong mountain men. bedding all 
the logs that lodged. 1 will never forget what hap- 
pened. The) - were all eatin' dinner at mother's and 
one man, by the name of Sol Potter, was eatin' big 
onion blades and he got choked and got his breath all 
that evenin' through the onion blade, but by good 
luck Mr. Potter is a real rich man in coal land below 
Hemphill leased to Parson Brothers and Big Jim 
Montgomery, and in that bunch of log-bedders was 
Henry Potter, of Kona, another rich man of the 
mountains, and a brother to Sol Potter and also a 
brother-in-law of ex-Jailer Hall. Mr. Wright, the 
owner of the logs and dams, was murdered by Noah 
Reynolds just above his home, now Seco. Reynolds 



10 



History of Corporal Fess Whitqker 



was sent to the penitentiary for life and served 

seven years and was paroled by Governor Beckham. 
Reynolds is now a Baptist preacher and lives 
in Knott County. The Southeast Coal Company 
is now operating on Mr. Wright's land at Seco, Ky. 

After the big tide and all the rails gone and big saw- 
logs laying out in the bottoms in the corn in April, 
we had no money, so us boys finished making the crop 
and minded the stock out of our corn with the dogs 
until fall. There was no such a thing those days as 
wire fences, and in the fall we went to the mountains 
and cut and hauled in rail timber and made rails back 
out of big white oak trees or black oaks worth $25 
per tree now. We would cut and saw the cuts in 
make the rails out of about eight feet, would split and 
burst them open with two good wood gluts and iron 
wedges and a good old seasoned hickory mall, weigh 
ing about thirty pounds. After we got our corn and 
fodder laid up for winter the people would go many 
miles to an old horse mill to get cornmeal ground. 
Everyone would take their turn grinding. They 
would ptit their horse into the mill, put their corn in 
the hopper and then get a >witch and start the old 
horse around. And in about one hour he would have 
about one bushel of good meal. There were only 
three mills within fifty miles square. Old Levi 
Eldridge had one on Rockhouse, and old Pud P>reed- 
ing had one on Breeding's Creek, and old Fighting 
George I son one on Line Fork. 

When ! was eight years old my mother started un- 
to an old water mill with two bushels of corn to get 
meal and put me on an old mule named "John," put 
a spur on my right heel to make the old mule go if 



Kentucky Mountain Life n 

lie took the studs. So 1 was just going across Burton 
Hill and, like a boy, I wanted ray mule to trot, so 1 
applied my spur and he started and I began to bounce 
around on the saddle, and the tighter I clinched mv 
legs the faster the old mule got, so he ran through a 
big ivy and laurel patch and threw me off. By luck I 
only got skinned up a little hit, so I finally caught old 
"John" and took off my spur and got back on the old 
mule. It was a very cool, frosty morning, so I went 
up about two miles to where the late 'Esquire Whit- 
aker lived and I got down to warm. I hitched my old 
mule to the gate and fixed my corn on better and went 
into the house. After I got warm J went back out 
and got on my old mule and went on to the mill at 
Ben Back's, f got down to take my corn off and 
there w r as no corn, so I took back down the road 
huntin' for my sack of corn. I went back to where I 
warmed and there I found my sack torn all to pieces. 
While I was warming the old cows pulled it off of my 
saddle and the hogs drug it over a cliff of rocks and 
eat it all up. So I went home and mother sure did fix 
my back, and then w^e shelled another sack of corn 
and mother took it, because it was noon and no bread 
and a houseful of children and no bread to eat. 

I never spoke a word until I was nine years old. I 
only clucked and motioned for wdiat I wanted Lots 
of people thought I was an idiot because I could not 
talk. I may have looked like one, for I was a little old 
country boy that never cut my hair in those days only 
about twice a year, and T wore a big checked cotton 
shirt and old jeans pants made by my mother and old 
yarn socks, and 70-cent stogie shoes with brass toes. 
This was my winter suit and my summer suit was 
only a big yellow factory shirt and no hat or shoes. 



12 



History of Corporal Fess Whitaker 



At the age of ten 1 was taken by my mother and 
uncle, Gid Hogg, to Whitesburg, ky., the county seat 
of Letcher County, a distance of about eighteen miles. 
We rode an old mare named "Kate," without any 
saddle, and when I was taken off I could not walk I 
was so stiff, and that made everybody think I was an 
idiot sure enough. So when Judge 11. C. Lilley 
opened court on Monday, February 12, they taken 




THE AUTHOR, AGE 10 

me before the judge. The judge ordered old Black 
Shade Combs, then the sheriff, to summons twelve 
jurors and two doctors. One doctor thought \ had 
been born an idiot, and I )r. S. S. Swaingo, of Jackson, 
held out that I was all right of mind, and so the cast- 
was ]>ut off until 10 a. m. Tuesday. Then Dr. Swaingo 
got old Dr. McCray and gave me a thorough exam- 
ination. The doctors found by examining my neck, 



Kentucky Mountain Life 13 

where the small tits in one's neck are, that the tit 
in my neck had grown together. After the doctors 
cut the tit loose in my neck 1 began to talk and to 
have a good joke. The doctors took me to a one-horse 
barber shop and had my hair cut and fixed me up and 
presented me on Tuesday morning to Judge Lilley, 
and he was surprised beyond reason that I was Fess. 
So that was Fess's first miracle. Later on they have 
all been worked out to the present. 

When my mother took me back home everybody 
was surprised and people came miles and miles to see 
the boy that was so much talked about and to see the 
boy that had been made to speak after ten years of 
worthless tongue. 

I was put in school at the age of ten years and was 
known as the funny schoolboy. The children would 
all laugh at me because I could not talk plain, but it 
did not take me very long to learn how to stand ahead 
in my classes. I was very fast to learn in all the books 
they had those days except arithmetic. The first 
school I ever went to was in an old log house dobbed 
with mud, with an old-fashioned chimney made out 
of mud and sticks of wood. The late \Y. T. Haney, 
who was murdered on the head of Little Carr, of 
Knott County, for $30.00, was the teacher. He was 
known one day as being the best-read man and no 
doubt the best educated man in Eastern Kentucky 
those days. He was the father of John Haney, of 
Chicago, the expert railroad man, and the stepfather 
of George M. Hogg, one of the leading men in East- 
ern Kentucky. Mr. Haney, after hearing all of the 
children's lessons in the afternoon, would lay down 
in an old country wash trough for a nap of sleep. The 



14 History of Corporal Fess Whitaker 

trough was made out of a fine large yellow poplar, 

eight feet long, and hauled out of the mountains with 
a yoke of steers. The log was hewed square on one 
side with a sixteen inch broadax, then eight inches 
left at each end and the remainder was hulled out to 
a big trough, then two holes were bored in the bottom 
of each end of the trough and four wooden lei's, made 
by hand, were driven into the trough and set up. In 
the inside of the trough at one end at the bottom was 
a hole bored and a pin made to tit so that it could lei 
the water out. The water was "hit" and put in the 
tub and when the "wimen" began to wash they would 
have what was known as battling sticks and they 
would apply the water and soap on the clothes and lay 
them on the eight-inch end of the trough and begin 
t" battle. The old troughs have about all played out 
ot fashion, as the galvanized tubs were brought in and 
have taken the day; still there is many a one used up 
to the present daw The soap they used those days 
was the best of soap. The men folks would cut and 
haul in out of the mountains so many white oak and 
hickory trees. They would cut and saw them up and 
pile them up in a big pile and burn them to get the 
ashes. After the ashes were cooled off they took them 
and poured them into a gum called those days that 
was sitting on some boards that the gum was made to 
lean on. After staying nine days, on the old moon, wat- 
er was poured in the gum on the ashes and the red lye 
began to drop and run out of the bottom into another 
trough, made like the washin' trough but smaller. 
After the lye leaked out good and got all the strength 
out oi the ashes, the lye was put in an old country 
fashion pot and the hogs' guts that had been washed 
and dried and strung on a pole in the corner of the old 



Kentucky Mountain Life 15 

chimney was taken down and put in the pot with the 
lye. The lve was so strong it soon ate up the hogs' 
guts and boiled to a jelly-like substance and taken off 
and put in old big round gourd raised on the farm. 
The gum that held the ashes was a hollow tree cut 
down and burnt out inside and sawed into about four- 
foot lengths for gums. 

The second school that I went to. was taught by 
little Sammie Banks, of Big Cowen. Sammie boarded 
with my mother, and after the live months' term of 
school was out Preacher Jim Caudill made up a sub- 
scription school at the mouth of Rockhouse at SI. 00 
each and mother signed for five, and she had no 
money, but had a good nerve. The first week I went 
mother took me up in her lap and tried me in arith- 
metic where the teacher had me, and I knew nothing 
about it. The teacher was pushing me too fast. 
Mother told me that she would try me one more week 
and if I could not do anything in the arithmetic by 
the next Friday that she would give me a good whip- 
ping. So the next Friday came and I had not learned 
anything, so I played off sick about 11 o'clock that 
morning at school and went out of the schoolhouse 
and began to play off crazy, and my sister Julia, now 
Airs. J. D. Stamper, of Big Springs, Tex., ran after 
mother. There being no medical doctor within forty 

miles, they brought a charm doctor, Andy C . 

who rubbed me and charged mother five dollars for it 
and claimed I had been poisoned very bad, so by Mon- 
day I was ready for school. And mother told me what 
would happen Friday if I could not do anything with 
my arithmetic. So I tried, and Friday evening mother- 
tried me and I was in long division, but I could not 
do anything. She got me up in her lap and tried her 



L6 



History of Corporal Fess Whitaker 



best to show me, !>ui all in vain. So she put me down 
and laid the hook upon the table and took me by the 
hand and led me to a large cedar tree and broke her 
a good switch and began whipping me. She whipped 
me until she gave out, and sat down on a large rock- 
pile to rest and stood me up and talked to me while 




EDDIE BROWN 
The good-natured schoolmaster 

she was resting. After she got through resting she 
raised and gave me the same dose again; then she 
took me hack in the house and got me up in her lap 
and began to show me about my lesson, and it jumped 
in mv head like a falling star, and from that time until 
the, present date I challenge the State of Kentucky 
in the arithmetic. That was my second miracle. 

The third school I went to was taught by Eddie 
Brown, on Burton Mill, in a new lo<j- house, with, no 



Kentucky Mountain Life 



chimney and no floor in the house and a big fire in the 
middle of the house. I always had the rest of the chil- 
dren beat by this time. 1 was twelve years old and 
past and had begun to get to be a pretty mean boy on 
account of so many people picking at me. Eddie 
Brown, the teacher, told us children if we were not 
good children that the "Old Bugger Man'* would 
come and get us. So the "Bugger Man" sure did 
come the next school. I was thirteen years old then, 
and Wesley Banks had been employed to teach the 
school, and by this time the school had the name of 
having the meanest lot of boys in it of any other school 
in Letcher County. I was called the leader. There were 
four of us called bad — Mason Whitaker, Ben Mcln- 
tar, Print Ison and myself. Mr. Banks took charge 
of the school on July 5, and all the children's parents 
came in to see the new teacher. So the teacher gol 
up to talk and open his school. He was a very homely 
mountain man, and the first thing he said was: "This 
school has an awfully bad name and I understand that 
Mr. Eddie Brown teached this school last year and 
told you all that the "Bugger Man'' would come if you 
were not good school children. Now, I am the 'Bug- 
ger Man.' " 

When he said that ever}- child threw its eyes on him. 

"Next one \ call their name please come around to 
where I now stand," said the teacher. 

The first name called was Fess, then Print. Mase 
and Ben. So we all went around to where the teacher 
was and he said: "Boys, I have bin told that you four 
boys have bin very bad boys in school, so I am going 
t< I turn a new leaf." 



ls History of Corporal f : ess Whitaker 

My heart was in my neck, for I knew that Mr. 
Hanks had already brought in twelve long green oak 
switches before opening school. 

"Fess," said he. "it's reported to me that you are 
the meanest." and he took me by the hand and sure 
did like to beat me to death, and when he got through 




UNCLE WESLEY BANKS 
The "Buggar Man" school master 

with me he told me to take my seat. Then he took 
Print next and gave liini the same, then Mase, and 
while he was whipping Mase a large splinter flew off 
the switch and across a twenty-foot house and stuck 
in under the shoulder blade of the back of Less, a 
brother of Fess. Then he had to take a pair of old 
home-made tooth pullers that had been made in a 



Kentucky Mountain Life 



19 



blacksmith shop by big Jim Back, of Caudill's Branch, 
and pull out the splinter. After all that he gave Ben 

the same dose as he did us. He then said that the 
school had opened, and gave us our lessons. He only 
had to apply his new rule once. After the free school 
was out the same old Baptist preacher, Jim Caudill, 
got up a subscription school again that winter. My 




CRISS BROWN 
The wooden pistol hero 

mother had rented part of her farm to Joe Brown, of 
Cumberland River, and he had eight hoys, and one, by 
the name of Criss, was very bad. Along during the 
second week Criss done something and the teacher 
went to whip him and he bucked on the teacher, so the 
good old teacher, about sixty years old. put the whip- 
ping off until he could see the father of Criss. So that 



20 History of Corporal Fess Whitaker 

night Criss made him a wooden pistol and wired a big 
forty-four cartridge hull on the end of it and made 
a fuse hole in the end of it and rilled it with black 
powder and drove a stick in on the powder and took 
it with him to school. The teacher had seen the boy's 
father and told him about the trouble and the father 
said to he sure and whip him, so he called for Criss to 
come around and get his whipping, and instead of 
going up he ran out of the house and the teacher fol- 
lowed him, but all in vain. So the teacher came back 
into the schoolhouse and sat down in the chair and 
started giving out a spelling lesson. The schoolhouse 
was on old-fashioned log house dobbed with mud. and 
some of the mud had fallen out of the cracks of the 
schoolhouse. With his big forty-four cartridge hull 
loaded he sighted it right at the teacher's old bald 
head and struck a match and touched it to the fuse 
hole and the old wooden gun went off and the wooden 
bullet struck the old man right in the head. lie 
jumped up and dismissed t lie school, very badly scared 
and bleeding, and never did teach another school. S< > 
the next year they got the "Bugger Man" teacher 
again and everybody came out to see him open his 
school the same as they did before. 

Wesley Hanks, at the age of thirty, did not know a 
letter in the book and began going to school, and at 
the age of thirty-three received a third class certifi- 
cate and began teaching and now has taught forty- 
six schools in Letcher County thirty-seven years in 
succession without missing, and very near whipped 
ever)- boy in Letcher County. He was at one time 
called the best teacher in Letcher Count v. 



Kentucky Mountain Life 21 



At the age of fourteen I became head of the family, 
as my older brother, Fred, became grown at the age 
of sixteen and, there being no father to make him 
mind, he ran around the country one year, doing no 
good. At the age of eighteen R. B. Bentley, with both 
legs off, then County Court Clerk of Letcher 
County, took him into his home and finished his edu- 
cation for him. He is now a well-to-do-farmer and 
stockman of Richmond, Ky. 

After T became head of the family mother went off 
one Sunday and myself and the four younger boys 
run a year-old colt in the stable and we had just killed 
some hogs, so we got the hogs' bladders off of the 
hogs' guts and blew them up and filled them up with 
white beans and they sure would rattle. So T tied three 
bladders to the colt's tail and opened the door and 
turned the colt out. There was a large apple orchard 
all around the barn, it being about four acres square. 
So the colt started, its tail in the air, then under its 
belly, then between its legs, scared to death, and just 
simply burning the wind. ' Ton my honor," when it 
got to the other end of the orchard it turned to come 
back and its tail hit an apple tree, causing one of the 
bladders to burst. Talk about jumping! The colt went 
up in the air about ten feet, and when it hit the ground 
it made an awful funny noise and started for the barn. 
Us boys got out of the way and when it got within 
ten feet of the barn it made a long jump for the door, 
and just as it went to go through the door it struck 
its hip against the side of the door and knocked one 
of its hips out of place. 



22 History o f Corporal Fcss Uliitaker 

Just as soon as mother came home the other boys 
told on me. SO I ^ure did get some more of that oak 
tea just like Wesley Banks gave me, and my mother 
sure was mad. 

My mother was a Hogg before her marriage, and 
sure could whin and whip with a good constitution. 

I am now fifteen years old and in school and the best 
attendant in Letcher County. There were about 
twenty young men and thirty young girls in my elass. 
The school was mostly composed of Bankes, Isons. 
Fraziers, Caudills, Backs, Hoggs and Whitakers. 
Burton Hill is located about two and one-half miles 
from the mouth of Rockhouse. It is a beautiful place 
and about twenty acres square and all level, covered 
with large black pines, cedars, ivy and laurel and lot- 
of mountain tea grows there. It lies in the bend of 
Rockhouse Creek, and the creek runs very near all 
around it. It is now owned by Less, brother of Fess, 
of Amarillo. Tex. That is where the late Wesley Col- 
lins and Daw Adams built the first church in the 
lower end of the county. And the first preacher I ever 
saw was then. 

Mother had washed us all up and put a clean shirt 
on us hoys and taken us up to church. Mr. Collins 
opened up the church like the old Regular Baptists do 
nowaday-. After church was opened Mr. Adam- was 
the first preacher. lie was then about forty years old 
and had been married seven times and stood about six 
feet and four inches on the ground, and holds the 
world's champion horse-swapping medal, lie had 
two big Long cowboy spurs, one on each foot, and his 
boots had the pictures of the moon and stars on top 
of them. So Mr. Adams opened the song book and 



Kentucky Mountain Life 



23 




24 History of Corporal Fess Whitaker 

gave out an old-fashioned song - and asked everybody 
to help sing, and after the s< mg he took his text. 1 )on't 
reinemher just what it was. hut according to his faith 
Adams was carried off in a trance and he was squat- 
ting and yelling and said "Brothers and sistern, if this 
doctrine is from the Lord it's all risfht, and if it's from 




DAW ADAMS 
Mountain Champion Horse Swapper 

Daw A. it's no good," and about that time he drove 
those two big cowboy spurs into his thighs and he 
gave a great yell and everybody had to laugh. So Mr. 
Adams never got up to preach any mure from that 
day until this, hut he is a good old Baptist Christian 
and professed a hope a Few years ago and was bap- 
tized at Mayking, Ky.. where he was horn and reared 
up. Mr. Adams belongs to one of the largest genera- 



Kentucky Mountain Life 



tions in the country and is well liked and thought of 
by everybody. His great-grandfather came over here 
the same time that Daniel Boone did, and Boone 
settled at Kona and Adams at Mayking. Those days 
times were rough in Letcher Count)-; a moonshine 
still was in very near every hollow and a blind tiger 
everywhere. And Adams was a big-hearted fellow 
and fell on the church that da}' to get to skin some 
good old man out of his horse or mule. 

Mr. Collins, the other preacher, died some years 
ago in the asylum at Lexington. He died in good 
faith and died a regular Baptist, and belonged to a 
large generation of people and good parents. One of 
his sisters sailed from New York on February 23. 
1918, as head of the Salvation Army in France. ^ on 
will always find the Collins' trying to live in the faith 
and always doing something good for their neighbors. 
Those were the first preachers T had ever seen. I had 
never been taught anything about churches or Sun- 
day-schools, but since that day I have seen all kinds 
of churches. 

Just before the end of school the late Elijah Banks, 
who lived on the head of Montgomery Creek on the 
north fork of the Kentucky River that empties into 
the river in Perry County, in the great coal fields of 
Eastern Kentucky, had four grown boys in school, so 
they set in begging my mother to let me go home with 
them on Friday evening, and at last my mother con- 
sented to let me go. So after school was out Friday 
evening we all started for Montgomery Creek, about 
eight miles through the mountains. 

We went down to the mouth of Caudill Branch at 

the three big cliffs of rock, up Caudill Branch to the 



26 



History of Corporal Fess Whitaker 



month of Whitaker Branch, and up Whitaker Branch 
and across a big mountain well covered with white 
oak, chestnul oak, red oak and chestnuts and three 
big coal veins under same: No. 3 veins four feet thick, 
\o. 4 veins six feel thick, and No. 7 veins seven feel 
and eighl inches thick. Over in head of right-hand 

fork ot Elk Creek down we go, and down that fork 

to the mouth at Uncle Dave Back's and then up a 

steep hill to the top, and there we fouhd a nice level 
country, 2,097 feet above sea level, and one of my 
father's sisters lived there, Aunt Peggie Dixon. All 

of them came out t<» see me, and after we left there we 
went around through the Mat woods, and as we wenl 
through the Mat woods the Banks boys told me thai 
Thomas Gent, a big, rough nineteen year old hoy, had 

knocked out Tress I lenslcv's black cow's eye and they 
wanted me to win']) him and they would give me 
twenty five cents for it. I told them I would do it. ! 
had the twenty five cents on my mind, and it was my 
first piece of money to get, should I win. I made up 
my mind to win. So now we were around in the flat 
woods to where Press Hensley lived. The Banks boys 

Called <>ut I lensley and asked aboul his old black cow 
getting her eye knocked out. I Ic went on and told all 
about it. and it sure did go in on my brain, so we had 
t<> go down a little steep place through a big chestnut 
orchard to where the G. boy lived. I went in and 
asked where the hoys were and the old folks said that 
the} were around in the Rich dap field. That pleased 
the Banks hoys, so just as we got in sight of the field 
I met Thomas, a very big man, weighing aboul I40or 
150 pounds. I asked him about knocking the cow's 
eye out, and, like a mountain man. he said he did. Jusl 
as he said it I struck him in the stomach with mv left 



Kentucky Mountain Life ^ 

hand and on the chii rij^ht hand and he 

struck the ground, rind onto him \ went and into hi- 
inned it in a t! I up 

and asked for my price of twenty-fi\ • which 

gladly paid. We all 'he hil! 

• here the b 

\ never had a ime in my life than f 

trip, and \ ■ The 

ther had thirty-six bif and Iv- 

an old ra^ and tied it on a ^tick 

and r< 
=:ken out a anfull of tine linn ho: 

Aur. 
mad II mold- 

olenty 
of hi I 

W 

VI 

to V 

.• - 
- 

about I I 

courtin'. '. 

I 
no mo- 
rn each ot: 

rner 



28 



History of Corporal Fess Whitaker 




MATILDA WHITAKER 
The authors mother. Born February 13, 18-18. Died Oetober 30, 1918 



Kentucky Mountain Life 29 

So Sunday evening we all went hack over the 
mountain to our school. That was one great trip that 
will never he Eorgtten., and my first trip away from 
home. T learned on that trip to have a nerve and to 
have faith in myself. 

After the free school was out my mother took me 
up to old Shade Combs', sixteen miles up on Rock- 
house, to a winter school. Shade Combs was a first 
cousin to my mother, and he remembered the time 
when he was the sheriff and they had brought me to 
Whitesburg to try and get me on the county, and we 
had some good jokes about it. Mother stayed all 
night and next morning she put me in school. Pro- 
fessor C. C. Crawford was the teacher, and T .made 
myself at home and liked school fine and done well in 
school. 

T am now sixteen years old and out of school, grub- 
bing and fencing and clearing land, trying to keep my 
brothers in school, which I did by hard work. T was 
known those days as the father of my brothers. 
During that year my sister, Julia Stamper, now of Big 
Springs, Tex., was plowing an old yoke of oxen 
named Dick and Mon, and Little, now Dr. Whitaker, 
of Blackey, Ky., was driving the old oxen, and I hid 
behind a big rockpile, wrapped up in a big white sheet, 
and when they came around the rockpile 1 jumped at 
the old oxen and it simply scared them to death. 
Their tails went in the air and they went across that 
field just a-flying, and old Dick got the bottom plow 
stuck in his side and died from the effects of it. Julia 
and Little ran to the house and told mother what had 
happened, not realizing it was me that had scared the 
poor old steers. So I owned it up, and I do believe 



30 History of Corporal Fess U'hitaker 

thai was the hardest whipping that my mother ever 
gave me. It was funny, but I guess 1 sure did need it. 

The same year during mulberry time on Saturday 
we all came in about 11 o'clock in the morning for 

dinner. We had a large mulberry tree down next to 
the gate and it was awfully full and just getting ripe. 
So we all made a dive for the tree, five of us boys. We 












Dr. Gid Whitaker and Rev. Jim Whitaker 
at ages 7 and 9 



Twin brothers. Little and Less 
at age 1 1 



all got right in the top of it and began to eat. After 
getting what we wanted I began to shake the tree 
with the hoys and they all got seared and fell out. 
Less got two ribs broken. Little threw his left arm 
out of place, Gid broke his left leg, and Jim got his 
tailbone broke, and poor old Fess fell out at the same 
time and got my left thigh broke. That was an awful 
sight to see five brothers broke up like we were. Those 
days there was not a doctor in forty miles of mv 



Kentucky Mountain Life 31 

mother's. She put splits on our limbs and put them 
in boxes to keep them straight. The boxes were made 
out of six-inch lumber. It did not take over thirty- 
three days until we were all out to work again. We 
were all hurt that time, so mother could not whip or 
quarrel at me. 

In the same year, but in the fall, mother went to 
catch "Old John," the old mule I went to mill on. Just 
as she went to put the bridle bits in the old mule's 
mouth he turned the other end and mother jumped 
back to keep the old mule from kicking her. Just as 
she jumped she stepped on a slantin' rock and fell and 
broke her right leg square in two. We had our mother 
carried home and her leg dressed like she did us boys, 
and she could not use that leg for seventy-four days. 
The old main stake was sick this time and we got in 
the hole very bad and in debt, so I had to lay up my 
education upon the mantle (made out of an old oak 
board), and on November 1 I took me a piece of raw 
middling meat, a piece of corn bread and two big 
onion heads and pulled out to look for me a job. I 
pulled for Stonega, as that was the nearest railroad, 
and no job there for a boy like me, so I went on down 
Callahan Creek to Mudlick and tried, and there I got 
me a job — the first job — and it was seventy-five cents 
per day, and board fifty cents per day. This job was 
wheeling dust from a band sawmill. After working 
one day and a half I white-eyed on account 
of the dust and they could not pay me un- 
til payday, so I took script for my pay. I then 
paid my board and bought canned beef and 
crackers with the rest. That night [ caught a boxcar 
of coke and the train left Appalachia, Va., at 8:40 
p. m. for Corbin Ky., and I began then my first 



32 History of Corporal Fcss Whitaker 

hoboing. T was on my first train, and on the third 
day T was set off at Knoxville, Tenn., so [ began hol- 
lering and sonic stranger broke the seal, as I heard 
them call it then, and got me out of the car and took 
me to a machine shop and told me to wash myself, 
and [ did. I was just as dirty as a black man not to 
be black. After the whistle blew for dinner I walked 
it]) to the upper end of the yard watching and trying 
to find out how to catch a train that would take me 
back to Stonega, \ a., for T was sure tired of hoboing. 
So late that evening' I met a colored man walking up 
through the yard and I asked him where he was going 
and he told me he was going to try and catch a 
through drag of empty coke cars for Stonega, and 
that pleased me to death, and I asked him how far We 
were from Stonega and he replied about 350 miles. 
So he said for me to go with him, and I did, and when 
we got to the upper end of the yard we met another 
white man headed for Cumberland Gap on our road. 
So when night came we all went up a little ways out 
of the yard and made us a bed down by a pile of rail- 
road ties and made a Tire and were going to catch the 
first freight that went up the hill that night. So my two 
partners asked me to go out to some of the houses and 
beg us something to eat. 1 went and knocked on the 
first door 1 came to and a nicely dressed lad}' came to 
the door and asked me what I wanted and I told her 
a nice story that I had learned from my partners. The 
good lady went and brought me a little wooden tray 
lull and some nice biscuits baked out of baking pow- 
der, which are line while they are hot. and after the) 
get cold the} are not like sour milk bread, the}' are 
hard. So the good lad)- said to me: "Young boy, \ 
am not giving you these biscuits for your sake. 1 am 
giving them to you for Christ's sake." 



Kentucky Mountain Life x > 

T thanked her and looked her right in the eye and 
said, "For God's sake put a little butter on those bis- 
cuits for me." 

The good lady laughed at me and took my name., 
which I gave her, and she gave me some very 
good advice, and it is still in my heart today. I bade 
her good-bye and went back to my partners. They 
were very well pleased, and after we had supper we 
talked awhile and they taught me how to hobo, or 
catch a freight train, and told many hobo stories. 
around the firelight. 

We all laid down about 9 o'clock that night on the 
ground by a good fire. It was getting cool, that being 
in the early part of November. When I woke up my 
two partners were gone and T ran just as fast as I 
could up the hill after a passenger train. After I 
came to myself \ could hardly believe I had clone what 
T had, so [ went back down the track to where our 
cam]) fire was burning, and there I found the colored 
man's old cap and my hat gone, so of course I put the 
old cap on. I did not know what to do, so I decided 
to make a start back towards Knoxville. I was then 
about three miles out of the city, and right in the 
upper end of the yard I met two men. They tried to 
raise a talk with me and went out to one side and 
talked and 'then came back to me and asked me some 
more questions and finally they took me with them 
and stopped behind an old dark house about two hun- 
dred yards from where they met me and began to 
whisper, and I believe as I am living today they meant 
to kill me. And in less than a second it turned as 
bright as the brightest day you ever saw all around 
me about three feet square. And those two men just 



^ History of Corporal Fess Whitaker 

simply flew, and just that minute it turned dark again 
and I flew the other way and in about two hours day- 
light broke and I walked down in the yard to where 
a large train was made up, as they are called. I 
crawled into one of the big hoppers and in about ten 
minutes they coupled a large engine to it and I heard 
the engine blow two long whistles and about that 
time a man stuck a big pistol right in my face and told 
me to get out of there and to get out d — n quick. I 
bounced the ground in a hurry and begging and roll- 
ing on the ground playing that I had sprained my 
ankle. The man tried to make me walk, but I still 
played off cripple. He told me to sit down and he 
asked me what I was doing there and I simply told 
him the truth and he got sorry for me and told me 
that he would turn me loose this time, but watch out 
for the second time. I asked him to get me a walking 
cane, which lie did. and I started hopping along up 
through the yard. Just as soon as I got out of sight ! 
threw my cane away and sat down and took a good, 
long, hearty laugh and then got up and walked seven 
miles to the nearest railroad station, and while there 
I met an old soldier making his way for Stonega and 
when the train stopped it happened to be a water tank- 
station, and while they were taking water my soldier 
partner broke the seal and it was a carload of hay for 
Stonega. We both jumped in and the next morning 
we were setting in front of the Big Red Stable at 
Stonega. I got me a place to board and the second 
day got a job in the mines trapping at 90 cents per 
day. hater on I got a job driving a hard-tail, or a 
mule, in the mines at $1.30 per day. On the 20th day 
of February I went home on a visit and took mother 
and the four boys in the lower room and poured out 



36 History of Corporal Fcss Whitaker 

on the bed $23.00, all in one-dollar bills. Thev were 
all scattered out on the bed. Everybody thought that 
was some sight. That much money those days and 
money was scarce. I told mother that it was for them 
all and for her to keep the boys in school and T would 
go hack to my job and make some more. 

On the seventh day of May the mine foreman put 
me to running' an old-fashioned Jeffries motor. T 
worked one month on that job and went home again. 
It was thirty-three miles across the big Black 
Mountains and across the Cumberland River and then 
across the Pine Mountains to old Uncle Oby Fields' 
on the head of Big Cowan Creek, then across a small 
hill onto the head of Kingdom Come (the creek which 
John Fox, Jr., wrote his two books on), and down 
Kingdom Come to the mouth of it and then flown the 
river seven miles to my mother's at the mouth of 
Rockhouse. That was a pretty good walk for a boy 
only seventeen years old. 

I gave ni}- mother on this trip $45.00 and she was 
awfully pleased witli me and said: "Fess, we need the 
money bad enough, but you air gittin' long bad in 
yer education, and I can't hardly stand ter see yer do 
"that." 

"After I get the other boys where they can take 
care of theirselves 1*11 finish my education,*' I replied. 
"I am now going to jine the army." 

During the Spanish-American War, February 12. 

1<X ( )X, I enlisted for two years' or long as the war 
lasted. I was signed to Company L, Fourth Ken- 
tucky Volunteers, and was stationed at Lexington. 
After I had been signed to my company there was a 
big fellow come around and asked something smart. 



Kentucky Mountain Life 37 

thinking he was one of those smart fellows, and before 
he could think I had knocked him down with a big 
garbage bucket and I had him whipped before he 
found it out. That built my reputation during my 
service in Company L. 

My Captain was Ben B. Golden, of Barbourville, 
Ky., and before time to discharge us volunteers after 
peace was made the Captain resigned and H. J. Cock- 
ron was signed as Captain of Company L. And when 
the First Sergeant, James Day, of Whitesburg, Ky., 
made out all the discharges for the Captain to sign 
the Captain came in the office at Anniston, Ala., where 
we were discharged, to sign the discharges and he 
took up with the Sergeant alphabetically and asked 
about each man whom he did not know personally 
When he came to my name he asked the Sergeant if 
that was the man that laughed so much and the Ser- 
geant told him it was, so he had me put down excel- 
lent character. Then Captain Cockron signed the dis- 
charges. 

During the time we were in camp at Lexington 
some of the boys in my company got body lice all over 
them and I got scared and took my dog tent and 
stretched it up under some hedge trees next to the 
railroad track, and the first night the train went by 
at 11 o'clock and she whistled some awfully large 
yells and scared me and I jumped up in my sleep and 
tore my dog tent all to pieces. T thought the train 
was running over me. So the next day I fixed my 
tent up and got me some wheat straw and made me 
a bed and ditched the water around my tent and it 
sure did do some raining that spring and my bed rot- 
ted. Sleeping in so damp a place I took the fever and 



^ History of Corporal Fcss ll'lritaker 

was taken to a hospital. After three days I was taken 
out of that hospital and put in a division hospital, 
where I just did live. After three months in the hos- 
pital some of the boys told me if I could make my tem- 
perature register 98 degrees three times in succession 
I could get out, and the same fellow told me how to 
do. He said when the thermometer was put in my 
mouth and I caught the doctor looking off to draw 
my breath hard so as to cool the thermometer, which 
I did, and on the fourth day the doctor ordered the 
nurse to bring in my uniform and to let me set up 
some. So when they brought that dear old uniform 
it was rolled up in a dear old American flag that I had 
offered to sacrifice my life for. The doctors had given 
me up to die and had ordered the nurse to wrap my 
clothes up in the flag so it would be placed with me. 
It was over one-half of the time that r did not know 
anything, but when I did come to myself mother was 
the first I thought about. She had been notified, but on 
account of being so poor, no money and so many miles 
away from the railroad she could not come, but waited 
in great patience to hear from me. The first letter I 
received after I could tell the nurse who my mother 
was and her address I got a letter in return in a few 
days and it is still written upon my heart in large 
American tears like the dear old mothers are shedding 
for their loved ones who are in France today in those 
cold trenches and dugouts and mud and water up to 
their waists and the top of the earth covered with 
snow and ice nine feet thick, fighting for the freedom 
of America, which we are sure to win if God lets this 
world stand, and I believe we will win this war 
during 1918. 



Kentucky Mountain Life 39 

After I got my uniform and put it on with many 
wrinkles in it after being" rolled up for about four 
months, I sure did look funny. I was so thin the sun 
shined through me. After about twelve days I got 
able to go and I was put in an ambulance and taken 
to the Southern Depot at Lexington and transported 
to Anniston, Ala., where I was signed back to my old 
company. When I walked up through my company 
street there was the worst surprised set of young men 
I ever saw. They all thought I was dead and had for- 
gotten me, but when they realized it was sure Fess 
they all sure did rejoice. 

As soon as I got strong enough to do guard duty 
I was put on guard over at Division Headquarters. 
I was put on the third relief and I dreaded to see night 
come. But about 11 :30 that night the corporal of the 
guard woke me up and said: "Get up, third relief." 

I got up, straightened myself up and got my belt 
and gun. 

"Outside, third relief," he said, and lined us up and 
started around with us. I was put on first post. My 
beat was from the guardhouse to the end of No. 2 
post, where there was a large tent stretched up. On 
the inside were two big dry goods boxes and a dead 
man stretched on each box covered with a white sheet. 
The corporal and the man I relieved told me that I 
was not to let any dogs or cats eat on those men, and 
every round I was to go in and look at them. That 
made the cold chills run all over me and my hair stood 
straight up. 

It was in the latter part of May and the wind was 
blowing and it was cloudy. The clouds were running 
like thev do lots of times when the moon is shining. 



40 History of Corporal Fess Whitaker 

My post was up on a ridge and the railroad yard was 
down on one side and the engine was running' up and 
down through the yards and the old bells ringing and 
on the other side was an old coralle and every once in 
awhile you could hear an old mule blowing his whistle 
sounding' just like "How are you, Fess?" On my sec- 
ond round when I got up in about ten feet of the tent 
and the flaps were flapping awfully and scared me 
very bad, but \ went in and looked at the dead men. 
When I started back, walking very fast, an old cat 
about twenty feet of me went "meow." I am 
sure I could have heard it one-half mile and it just 
simply scared me to death, and when I got to the 
guardhouse T loaded my gun and got my back up 
against the tent and there I stood until 1 saw the first 
relief coming to relieve me. Nobody knows how good 
T felt when \ saw the light coming down the ridge to 
relieve me. 

I came oft" post duty at 10 o'clock and 1 was asked 
to stay and assist the doctors in operating upon those 
two dead men. which T did. \ had to light their cigars 
and put them in their mouths while they were cutting 
them up. They took their insides out and put them 
in a dishpan, cut their heads open and took their 
brains out separately and took their backbones out 
and cut into twenty-four pieces. The soldiers were 
dying from a disease called spinal meningitis and they 
were trying to stop it. After the operation their 
bodies were put back together and well dressed and 
put in caskets and shipped home. After I got my rest 
on guard I was picked out of the company and put in 
the kitchen to help John Gibson cook, which job I held 
until discharged in 1899. After I was discharged in 



Kentucky Mountain Life 



41 



1899 I returned to my old Kentucky home back in the 
mountains, forty miles from the railroad, which I had 
to walk. 

After I spent thirteen days with my mother I 
slipped oft" and walked to Jackson, Ky., a distance of 
sixty-five miles, and enlisted for two years and was 
sent to Cuba and was signed to Col. Teddy Roose- 
velt's brigade. That was where Teddy and I first met. 
He soon took a liking to me, and after the Battle of 
Santiago Teddy, without a wound and I with a bullet 
wound in my left arm, took me by the hand and said: 
"Fess, we have gained a great battle for our country. 




THEODORE ROOSEVELT 



You or I will be the next President of the United 
States, and if you get the nomination I am for you, 
and if I get the nomination I want you to be for me, 
for you have a great influence in the United States." 
We shook hands and parted. So Teddy was from 
the North and had more votes than the South and 
beat me to the nomination. But I was for him and 
am still for him. 

After eighteen months in Cuba I was discharged 
and returned to my same old Kentucky home. When 
Teddy raised the standing army from twenty-five 
thousand to sixty-five thousand I became a soldier 
again. I was then twenty-one years old, that being 
August 23, 1901. For three years I served. I was 



^ History of Corporal Fess Whitaker 

signed to the Fort Slocum (New York) Recruiting 
Station, and thirty days later I was signed to the 
"114th Company, Coast Artillery," Fort Totten, N. 
Y., under Capt. John W. Ruckman, Lieut. Balentine 
and Kesling. After I had been in that company for 
a few months the Top Sergeant made me chief cook, 
which job I held for six months. Then I asked the 
Top Sergeant to take me out of the kitchen, which 
he did. Then I had to go doing guard duty again. I 
soon began to be an expert orderly bucker, which I 
was hard to beat on. One time I know two of us boys 
were picked to do orderly, so we took our bayonets 
and cut the guard manual. McGlofin cut "C" and I 
cut "T" and I was beat and was given No. 2 post. 
The next day about 8 o'clock in the morning Capt. 
Landers walked up on me and said, "Why don't you 
arrest those two men?" 

I presented arms to him and came to port arms and 
asked, "What two men, sir?" 

"What two?" 

"Yes, sir," I replied. 

"Those two men going yonder," he said. 

"What for, sir?" I again asked. 

"For being drunk," he replied. 

"They are not drunk," I said. 

"I am going to prefer charges against you," he 
told me. 

"Very well, sir," I replied, presenting arms again 
to him. 

He went on down to the guardhouse to prefer 
charges against me, and sure enough he met two 
drunken men that No. 1 had let in. Old Toomy was 
walking No. 1 post, so the captain had his belt pulled 



Kentucky Mountain Life ^ 

and put him in the guardhouse and I saw the corporal 
of the guard coming* with one man and I knew that 
my time was coming next. 

So the corporal came up and said to me, "Turn over 
your orders," which I did. "Give me your gun and 
belt." I also did that. "Forward march and down to 
the guardhouse." 

I went, and at noon on Sunday everybody in my 
company was very much surprised to see me in the 
guardhouse after I had been beat for orderly. So in 
the afternoon the Sergeant of the Guardhouse sent 
me and Toomy to our quarters under heavy guards 
to get our old fatigue suits and to put our good clothes 
away. Monday morning I was taken out with the 
rest of the prisoners and lined up and counted and 
then signed to do certain work. I was put on the slop 
cart and a guard over us. We had to go to all the 
quarters and mess halls and get the slop and haul it 
off. I and Toomy were to be tried at 10 o'clock and 
it was raining something awful. My old campaign 
hat had leaked and my face was all striped with dirt, 
so when we got over to headquarters they put Toomy 
on trial first and the court placed Toomy's fine at $10 
and ten days in the guardhouse. They called me in 
before the court and the judge read the charges to 
me and asked me what I had to say. 

"Not guilty, sir," was my reply. 

The judge asked me if I wanted any witnesses, and 
I told him I did, so he took the names of the witnesses 
and the commanding officer's orderly was called in 
and the judge told him what to do. So we started in 
on my case. The men that tried me were commis- 
sioned officers and I was only an enlisted man, but 



44 History of Corporal Fess Whitqker 

we were all working for Uncle Sam, so we started in 
on the case and I stood in with them. After taking 
the proof I asked the judge to give me ten minutes to 
argue my case. The judge was surprised, but accord- 
ing to the arm}- rules he had to grant me that priv- 
ilege, and if I ever did put up an argument that was 
one time I did, and I soon won my case, and right 
there I started building myself in the army. Just 
after I got out of the guardhouse my old-time partner, 
Teddy Roosevelt, the President of the United States 
and always doing something good for someone, had 
an order issued from the War Department stating 
that all non-commissioned officers must be first-class 
gunners. All of the companies were lined up and 
asked by the Captains how many wanted to go up for 
the examination. I stepped out and all of the rest of 
the company laughed at me. I was put in school at 
Fort Totten for a while and soon was taken out of 
school at Fort Totten and sent to Fortress Monroe, 
Va., to a fine army school, and from there I was sent 
to Governor's Island, X. Y., and from there to Fort 
McKinley, Maine. So after the officers thought that 
the\- had me alright I was examined under orderly 
No. 52-189 and was qualified as a first-class gunner. 
I was examined on a 14-inch gun at Fort McKinley, 
Maine. My target was pulled by a tugboat making 
sixteen knots per hour and the distance was 
twenty-two miles out in the ocean and 1 hit the target 
four shots out of five. The target was only 12 feet 
square at the bottom and 6 inches at the top, canvas 
stretched all around it and a 6-inch black stripe 
painted around the target. One of my shots struck 
the small target. The bullet which I used weighed 
2,250 pounds and the powder charge weighed 640 



Kentucky Mountain Life 



45 



pounds. I had to load and fire that gun every sixteen 
seconds. Fort McKinley is located on the banks of 
the Casco harbor, main channel to the Atlantic ocean, 
what is known to the War Department as the "She 
Big Bar." I was examined at Fort Totten, N. Y., on 
the rest of the examination, which are lots. On Long 
Island Sound there is one of the best army instruct- 
ing schools in the army today. After I had qualified 
as a first-class gunner then I was promoted to a non- 
commissioned officer and signed back to my same old 
"114th Company," then I was appointed by my Cap- 
tain as an instructor. I was picked out of the New 
York harbor of 19,000 men and put on the recruiting' 
service on a salary of $65.00, board and railroad fare 
and traveling expenses and going over the country 
getting men for the army, which job I held until I 
was discharged. 

I was discharged out of the army August 22, 1904. 
I now hold two discharges of excellent character, 
first-class gunner and non-commissioned officer's war- 
rant. Soon as I was discharged I bought me a ticket 
for Norton, Ya., from Norton to my old mining and 
railroad station, Stonega, Ya., and then I pulled across 
the Big Black Mountain through the same old way 
as I had traveled when a boy to my mother's home. 

Soon as I got home all of the girls began to come 
in to see me and I sure could court some. All the girls 
were struck on me because I was a soldier, and after 
a man has been a soldier for four or five years and 
gets back home and there being so many pretty girls 
he wants to marry. So I got struck on four real pretty 
girls, Susan Cornett, Tina Breeding, Mary Amburgey 
and the one that made the winning, Mantie Ison.. 
When I made up my mind which one I loved best I 
sure set in to courtin'. 



46 



History of Corporal Fess Whitaker 



I first got struck on my wife it was down on Cau- 
dill's Branch to "old Stiller Bill" Caudill's funeral. 
He had made so much moonshine that he bore the 
name of "Stiller Bill." He had been dead ten years 
and had 12 grown children, 187 grandchildren and 91 
great-grandchildren to mourn his death. His funeral 
was preached by the old regular Baptist and Tra 
Combs was up preaching. It was then that I looked 
under a big beech tree and I saw a big, fine looking 
country girl. She weighed about 160 pounds, had blue 
eyes, black hair and big. fine, red, rosy cheeks that 
God had given her and she had a nose as large as a 
banana. 

Something went down in my heart and it really 
smothered me so I kept my eyes on her, and the more 
that I looked at her the prettier she got. Finally she 
got up and went out to an old country spring to get 
a drink, so I got up and went out to follow her. I went 
right to her and said. "Mantie, I am struck on you." 

"Now you are just trying to make fun of me," she 
said. 

"No, I mean what I say,'' said I, and so we began 
to talk and she and I went back down to where thev 
were preaching. 

After the meeting was over I asked her what she 
"was riding and where her horse was. She told me she 
was riding "old George." The horse had built a good 
reputation by being a good horse to tram logs. So I 
rode by her side home and after we got home we 
began sparking and after months courtin' we one 
Sunday were sittin' in an old-fashioned country rock- 
ing chair out in the back porch. I had her talked 
down and all she could do was just rock and nod her 



Kentucky Mountain Life 47 

head to what I said. She had never seen a railroad or 
a train of any kind and she had never been to Whites- 
burg - , the county seat of Letcher. She had been kept 
out of school to help her father run his farm. She 
could not talk up with me, so I got her head to nod- 
ding to everything I said, and I asked her what she 
thought about us getting married. She nodded right 
into it and I went home that evening tickled to death, 
I was so well pleased I couldn't sleep a wink that 
night. 

The next morning about 4 o'clock I got up and got 
my horse and pulled for Whitesburg to the County 
Clerk's office. It was a distance of about eighteen 
miles and was on December 13, and the worst old 
sloppy, muddy time ever was, but I didn't care, for I 
was goin' to git married. 

After I got my license I pulled back down the river 
and got to her home just before daybreak and went in. 
They all slept in one room, had five big feather beds 
and my sweetheart was laying in one of them. I told 
her to get up, that I had them. 

"Got what?" she said. 

"The license," I told her. 

She just laughed at me, and don't you know I had 
to set in and court her about ten more days before she 
would agree to marry me. 

After she agreed the second time we set the day. 
About seventy-five or a hundred people came in to 
help eat the wedding dinner, and the biggest part o£ 
them stayed for the dance. When we all started 
around on Elk Creek to get married I turned my 
horse over to my wife to ride and her father brought 
out an old mule for me to ride. She had the name of 



4S History of Corporal Fess Whitaker 

being the meanest mule in Letcher Count}'. Her 
name was "Dinah." S<> I put the saddle on and she 
only humped up a little, but when 1 put my foot in the 
stirrup and threw my leg across the saddle the old 
mule started right around the hill with me bucking 
and jumping. And mother began shouting and my 
wife liked to fainted and had to be taken off my horse 
After we all got straightened out we all went down 
on Elk Creek and the late Jim Dixon, founder of the 
old Regular Baptist Church of Indian Bottom, told 
us to stand up and to look him straight in the eye and 
said don't neither one of you laugh or cry. And the 
good old man went on and married us. Soon after 
our marriage we moved out to keep house in an old 
schoolhouse on Burton Hill. 

Mother gave me six hens and one rooster, one old 
sow and one pig, one cow and calf, one big- feather 
bed and two pillows and my wife got the same from 
her folks. 

We started out living very nice and happy, but my 
mind was on rambling, as I had been traveling. On 

January 7 my wife became sick and T had to go after 
Dr. Roark on Montgomery Creek, about eighteen 
miles. All my father-in-law's mules were gone to 
Stonega after a load of goods except old "Dinah," and 
T was compelled to ride her. So 1 saddled her up 
about 4 o'clock in the afternoon and a man held her 
until 1 got on. then I struck out down the river and 
up Elk Creek across a big ' mountain and on to the 
head of Bull Creek, up Bull Creek apiece and across 
another hill on to the head of Montgomery and down 
Montgomery to the mouth of Dr. Roark's Branch, 
Up the branch to Dr. Roark's house. 1 got there about 



^ History of Corporal Fcss Whitaker 

10:45 that night. Dr. Roark could not come and fixed 
me some medicine and I started back and went out 
to the fence to where I had hitched old Dinah and 
when I went to get on her she started down the branch 
kicking and bucking. I finally stopped her and got 
her started out O. K. down the branch, and as I went 
back across the mountain at the head of Montgomery 
it was very dark and my old friend "Dinah" got out 
of the road and we got lost in the top of the mountain. 
I got off of my old mule, took the bridle in my hand 
and started for the bottom of the hill and I came to a 
little log house dobbed with mud and a board loft, 
nowadays called the ceiling. I yelled and yelled and 
finally a man came to the door and said, "What do 
you want?" I asked him who lived there and he told 
me John Hall. I got down and went into the house 
and he took one of the boards out of his house loft and 
split it up and made a torchlight and told me how to 
go and went out to the fence with me. I got on old 
Dinah and the man handed me up the torch, made out 
of boards, and when I started the sparks from the 
torch began to fall on the old mule and she began to 
run and kick. After a little distance I had to throw 
the torch down and I was in the dark again and in the 
mountain. I had to let the old mule be the boss, as 
she could see and I could not. Finally she got in the 
road again and didn't stay no time until she got in 
under some pines where it was awfully dark and got 
lost again. Along about 2 o'clock in the morning I 
rode up to another log hut. After yelling several 
times someone came to the door and I asked him who 
lived there, and he said Jorin Hall. There we were 
back to the same place again. I asked Mr. Hall if 
there was not another road I could take that would 



Kentucky Mountain Life ol 

get me out of there. He told me how to go through 
the hill to Preacher Jim CaudiU's, my old school 
teacher. And I started off, and after about one hour 
I got on top of the hill and got lost again. It was so 
dark and I could not find my way out, as there were 
no moon and stars shining. So I got down and took 
my bridle in hand and made for the bottom and just 
before daylight I came to another house and hollowed 
and a woman came to the door and asked me what T 
wanted. I inquired who lived there and she told me 
John Hall. Now, I thought I had come to a new 
house on account of the woman, but when she told me 
John Hall lived there I thought I would fall off of 
that old mule I was so surprised and I simply got 
down and went into the house and waited until it 
began to break day. 

After it got light I started and finally got out of the 
head of Bull Creek and got back home just as they 
were eating breakfast. My wife very much improved. 

My father-in-law, Jeff Ison, had been elected Justice 
of the Peace, and J. P. Lewis had been elected Judge, 
and as yet no Constable had been elected, so my 
father-in-law began to beg me to let him have me 
sworn in as his Deputy Constable. My wife cried and 
made fun of me, but Jeff and I got on our mules and 
rode to Whitesburg to court, and Judge Lewis, now 
Secretary of State, swore me in for the office. The 
first raid I got in was the arrest of twenty-two men 
and women, known as Barlows and Engles. After I 
got the warrants I did not summons anybody to help 
me. I played Johnnie Wise and got all the dope I 
could on them. There were three bunches of them. 
I got one man to help me one night and I had to cross 



52 History of Corporal Fess Whitaker 

<i very big mountain, and about 11 o'clock in the night 
T was right in the head of Island Branch and T slipped 
up to a little old board or log house that stood on the 
side of the hill. Tt had board doors and no windows 
and one old big chimney and puncheon floor made out 
of chestnut wood. I had a mall in my hand and two 
good guns on me. The first thing I did was to hit the 
old board door with the old hickory mall with all my 
strength, and when I hit the door flew open just like 
lightning had struck it. I was in the house before you 
could tell how I got in, and I summoned everybody 
under arrest. Four men and three women came out 
of those old shuck beds just like wild hogs and come 
right at me. My man I had summoned to help me 
had got scared and run oft and left me. T began shoot- 
ing at them, not to kill, but to scare them. I knocked 
down two of the men and while T was putting hand- 
cuffs on them one man by the name of Nathan Engle 
went up the chimney and got away. 

So I brought my two men and three women over 
to George Whitaker'.s, at the head of 'Poison Creek, 
and got breakfast. I then took them down to Jeff 
1 son's and fastened them up in one of his rooms ! 
then set out to catch Nathan Engle, the one that had 
got away from me. So I waylaid a small road on the 
top of Campbell's ridge and just as he passed I nailed 
him and took him and put him in the same room with 
the rest of them. 

The next morning I went down to Lower Caudill's 
Branch and got all of them except Mary Engle. She 
had taken refuge in a large cave just opposite Jeff 
J son's on top of a high ridge. Her mother was a very 
poor woman and she came up and told Jeff if he would 



Kentucky Mountain Life 



53 



give her ten pounds of side meat she would tell 
where Mary was. So they traded and Mr. Ison told 
me. *I summoned Gid Hogg to help me make the 
arrest. I placed Hogg in the county road at the foot 
of the hill and as I was going up Elk Creek I got in 
behind her and was in twenty feet of her before she 
knew it. She made for the cave and I fired at her. 
Before I got to the cave I saw two bright objects back 
in the cave about sixty feet. I ordered her out three 
times and the last time began firing in the cave. T 
saw her start. The mouth of the cave was full of 
smoke and she ran by me and took right down the 
mountain. I took right out after her. She ran over 
rocks, brush, and a straight line to where I had Hogg 
placed. When she saw him she whirled on me and 
made for her bosom. About that time I nailed her 
and told Mr. Hogg to search her and he took a .3R 
bulldog pistol out from under her arm beneath her 
dress waist. She was so mad her teeth just rattled. 
She had a red calico dress on, which cost about five 
cents per yard, and a twenty-rive-cent boy straw hat 
on which was painted red out of poke berries and 
three chicken feathers dyed blue in the right side of 
her hat. She was barefooted and her feet were all 
scratched up where she had been hiding and running 
around in the woods so long. So I took her in and 
the next da}' we tried them and they all were con- 
victed and found guilty. I took them all to Whites- 
burg, a distance of eighteen miles, one day walking 
and had them all locked up in jail. 

Two years ago the same Nathan Engle betrayed 
his father-in-law, Billie Combs, and told him that he 
would go with him down in Perry County and help 
get his wife back, who was known as the famous horse 



:>4 



History of Corporal Fcss Whitaker 



thief of Kentucky for a woman. So poor old Billie 
got him a piece of meat and bread and went with him. 
Nathan put him under a cliff and told him to stay and 
he would go around to one of the Sloans', who had 
taken Billie's wife, and get her to come and talk with 
Billie. The old man fell asleep and Nathan slipped 
back and shot out the old man's brains and come 
through that night to his mother's. The old man was 
found dead on the third day by an old man cow hunt- 
ing. He was brought back home that day for burial, 
and Nathan met the train to help take care of his dead 
father-in-law, whom he had killed. When the train 
stopped at Blackey the Sheriff stepped off and cap- 
tured Nathan and he was taken to Hazard and put 
in jail and tried and sent to the pen for life. 

In April, 1905, I was plowing a yoke of steers in 
the old bent field on Burton Hill and there was noth- 
ing but saw briers. My w r ife was helping me; she 
was driving. About 10 o'clock the old steers took a 
notion to go to the river. They raised their heads and 
started. My wife had a rope on one of them and tried 
to hold them and got her foot hung under a bunch of 
those saw briers and fell down. She cried awhile and 
then I helped her up and we quit work. The birds 
and the toad frogs were singing and my mind became 
rambling and I pulled for Texas, the old Lone Star 
State, and stopped in Big Springs, Texas. I soon got 
a job with the carpenters 1 working some three months 
there. I was employed by the Connell Lumber Com- 
pany, which job I held until the panic of 1907. After 
I was out of a job and no money, and having a wife 
and one child, I began to realize what I had to do. 
So the T. & P. Railroad shop was there and Mr. 
Potten was master mechanic of the shops. I laid 



Kentucky Mountain Life 55 

away for him one evening and hit him for a job. I 
had been told by Fred Leper when I shook hands with 
Mr. Potten to hold tight to his hand and tell him 
about Teddy and myself in Cuba and I would be 
granted a job. So I did what Fred told me to, and it 
worked just like a clock. A job there was sure worth 
something. A man had to work in the shop those 
days when the times was good about eighteen months 
before he could get out on the road or ever be able to 
fire the engine for old Uncle Johnnie. I began on 
Monday; one week and ten days I had worked out of 
the pits to a bell cleaner and I was cleaning a bell one 
day on one of those big Western Blair engines and 
George Tamset, the roundhouse foreman, come to me 
and told me to go out there and fire the switch engine 
for Uncle Johnnie. There had been a wreck up at 
Midland and the fireman had been taken off of the 
switch engine and sent to help bring in the wrecked 
train. So I got on the switch engine one day and Mr. 
Davis got mad at me because Mr. Tamset had run me 
around all of the roundhouse men and I was not to 
blame. I done the work and done it right and looked 
after all of the company stuff. So Mr. Davis began 
to say dirty things about me and finally Homer 
Scragins told me that Davis was carrying a gun for 
me and had threatened my life and would not speak 
to me. 

I went home and got me a good .44 pistol and put 
it under my overalls while I worked and at dinner I 
would beat the other boys back to our room. Three 
of us boys were using the same box to keep our dirty 
clothes in and put our soap and towels in. When the 
boys would open the box there was the .44 there. 



56 



History of Corporal /'ess Whitaker 



When they got their snap and towels and go on wash- 
ing I would slip the .44 hack in my pocket for protec- 
tion. One day I passed where Davis was working on 
the engine and I heard him say, "There goes that 

d r ." I had my gun on me and as I went back 

to where 1 was working- he struck at me with a 
monkey wrench. Then the shooting" began. I put 
everyone out of the roundhouse. Billie Lee, assistant 
foreman, jumped in the turntable pit, and Davis ran 
through into the blacksmith shop and ran over the 
blacksmith foreman and got away and never has been 
heard of since. Of course, T lost my job for fighting 
on duty and got tried for shooting Davis. 

Davis failed to appear against me and the judge dis- 
missed the case. I got tried for the pistol, was prose- 
cuted by County Attorney Brooks, now in France, 
and defended by Marson & Marson, and I beat the 
case. They never could prove when I put the pistol 
on me. They proved I had it in the box and I proved 
I had the right because my body had been threatened. 
1 lost my job and beat my cases. I couldn't get 
another job and so I had enough of money to buy my 
wife a ticket, so I bought a ticket for her home in Ken- 
tucky by the way of Louisville and Stone'ga and 
thirty-five miles on a mule home. 

I then started on another hobo trip looking for a 
job. T went to the yardmaster in the Big Springs 
yard, whose railroad name was Bawley and told him 
I wanted to go to Aboline, Texas, on a freight, so he 
put me away in the old yard shanty and told me I 
would get out about 11 o'clock that night. But I 
failed to get out until 4 in the morning. He put me 
in the third car from the engine, and when I got in 



Kentucky Mountain Life ^ 

the car there were two more hoboes in the car, and 
by the time we got to Sweetwater, Texas, there were 
eleven of us all in the same car, all hoboes. So we 
pulled into Aboline about 3 o'clock the next day. I 
soon found out that there would be a madeup passen- 
ger train out of there over the Wichita Valley Rail- 
road to the Fort Worth & Denver Railroad, so I went 
to the baggage man and showed him that I belonged 
to the I. O. O. F. and W. O. W. and was dead broke 
and got him to agree to carry me, and he told me to 
go up to the water tank and hide in a bunch of 
mesquite bushes on the right, and when the engineer 
or Hog Head, known among railroad men nickname 
lor engineers, would look back for the flagman's high- 
ball and rim and get between the water tank and bag- 
gage car and after he got a chance he would open the 
baggage door and let me in. I done all he had told 
me to do, but when I jumped out of that bunch ol 
bushes to rim for the train there were three more men 
doing the same thing. So we all caught the baggage 
car. After a little bit my old baggage friend opened 
the door and just as he did one of the hoboes jerked 
it back. So we all rode the end of the baggage car 
and put our feet on the water tank to rest our legs. 
We stopped over to take water and, it being very dark, 
the fireman did not see us. Xext to the last stop the 
negro porter caught us and put us all off. But just 
as the train started on apast me I caught the rear end 
of the train and got on top of the coaches. They went 
about tw r o miles and found out I was on to]) of the 
train and stopped the train and the flagman climbed 
up on top after me, but as he was climbing up on top 
I was going down the left side of the baggage car. I 
jumped off and run out in the prairie. They looked all 



.IS 



History of Corporal Fess Whitaker 



around and could not find me, so they pulled out 
again. Just about the time they had got away from 
me I went under the car on the rods and the fireman 
saw me and stopped very quick. I jumped off and hit 
the prairie again. This time the old Hog Head had 
released his engine and was helping the flagman and 
conductor look for me. They were all highballing 
the old Hog Head and got away from me, so I started 
out walking after the train and in about half an hour 
I walked into Wichita Falls, Texas. 

I went down to the yard and met the yard crew and 
told them what a trip I had and that I was dead broke 
and I had a brother that was master mechanic for the 
Fort Worth & Denver Railroad at Amarillo, Texa^. 
They looked up the record and found that I was right, 
so they took me to the restaurant and gave me a nice 
breakfast and told me that I could not catch a through 
freight for Amarillo before 9 p. m. The first No. 19 
would be due at 9 p. m., so I stayed around there until 
noon and hit the day crew for dinner. They were glad 
to give me dinner because I could tell a tale to suit 
anybody. I met a brother I. O. O. F. and I had a real 
happy day at Wichita Falls, Texas, waiting for the 
first Xo. 19 through freight. 

About 8 p. m. I goes down in the yard and meet my 
same old night bunch all sitting around talking. They 
soon knew that I was the same fellow. One of them 
asked me where I was from. I told him that I was 
from Kentucky, and he replied: Kentucky, first 19 is 
two hours late, and said just lay down and we will 
get you up in time. One of the boys put an old rain- 
coat over me and at lip. m. sharp they called me and 
told me to get in the first car next to the engine: that 



Kentucky Mountain Life 59 

it was loaded with lumber for Amarillo, Texas. I got 
in at the small window in one end and put the win- 
dow together and put the key in so no one could see 
me. The next day about 4 p. m. we landed in 
Amarillo. I took my key out and opened my window 
and climbed out; I pulled right straight across town 
and met an old man with a black oilcan made like the 
railroad cans. He was old Uncle Johnnie, the city 
pumper, and I asked him if he knew a man by the 
name of Less Whitaker and could he tell me where he 
lived. He took me to his home and I had never seen 
him for thirteen years, as he had been out West for 
his health seven years before I went to the army and 
I served six years in the army. So I knocked on the 
door and a nice looking Western lady came to the 
door whom I had never seen before, as my brother 
had got married in Big Springs, Texas. Of course, 
I was very black and dirty and had an old dirty suit 
of overalls on. 

I said: "Lady, is Less here?" stepping up to her. 
"You mean Mr. Whitaker?" she asked. 
"Yes, mar'm," I said. 
"He is at the shop" she replied. 
"Don't you know me?" I asked, stepping a little 
closer. 

"No, sir." 

"You don't? Don't you know Fess?" 

"You are not Mr. Whitaker's brother, are you?" 

"Yes, mar'm." 

She reached out her hand and asked me to come in 
and I thanked Uncle Johnnie and he went back. 

I told her the little story that I had been telling. I 
had sent my grip by express on ahead of me and could 



,i(l History of Corporal Fess Whitaker 




LESS WHITAKER AND FAMILY 
Assessor and tax collector Potter County, Texas, 1916-20 



Kentucky Mountain Life 



61 



not get it out that night, so I washed up, took a good 
hath and put on one of Less' suits, and while I was 
doing this Ethel got me supper. After supper Ethel 
and T struck out for the roundhouse and found Less 
in the office. He knew me in a moment, and we 
stayed until he got all of his men to work and he put 
Parker as foreman and we all went to the city and had 
a real fine time. The next day I told my brother all 
my troubles and he told me promotion was awful slow 
on the Denver railroad, and a man can never work 
himself out of the shop. He also told me that he could 
get me a job firing on the Santa Ee if T could play the 
game and he said that the Santa Ee made more fire- 
men and engineers than any other railroad in the 
world. I told him Santa Ee for me. He took me out 
to the Denver shop and let me stay two or three days 
and he told me all he knew and showed me how to fill 
the lubricator, work the injector, shake the grates and 
explained the engine thoroughly. But there are some 
differences to a dead engine and one heated up. 

He took me on the fourth day to the Santa Ee shops 
and took me to the officer and introduced me to Mr. 
j. R. Cook as his brother and as an old experienced 
fireman of the L. & N. Railroad. So Mr. Cook replied 
that he had just promoted ten men and was needing 
firemen. So he took me down to have me examined 
and reported back. I got by the doctors all right and 
Mr. Cook gave me a blank to fill out, and of course 
my brother filled it out and told me how to do and 
what to say. Mr. Cook passed me and took my name 
and hung me up on the extra board. T was seventeen 
times out. it was about 4 o'clock in the afternoon. I 
left the number of the house where I would be so the 



62 



History of Corporal Fcss Whitaker 



callboy could find me, and of course I did not sleep 
any that night for thinking about my new job. So the 
next morning about 11 o'clock I saw the callboy and 
he called me for a double-header engine 182 for Plain- 
view, Texas. My brother happened to be by when I 
was called, and after I signed the book he began to 
tell me how to play the game, so I got dinner and got 
my things and pulled for the roundhouse. My train 
was already made up and engines 180 and 182 coupled 
together in the yard. I climbed up in the cab and 
there was a very nice looking gentleman filling the 
lubricator. He asked me my name and I told him 
Whitaker, and I asked his. He said George Scurry. 
About that time he began to screw his plug back in 
the lubricator and he turned the steam on too quick 
and the plug flew out and he had enough lubricating 
oil on him looked like to fill ten more just like that. 
He was very mad, as he had been promoted to a Hog 
Head the day before and he had bought a nice new 
railroad suit and it was awful to look at. He looked 
straight at me and replied, "Are you a new man or an 
old head h— 1?" 

"I am an old head." 

"What road are you off of?" 

"The L. & N/" I replied. 

"Good," he said. 

So at 1 p. m. sharp the two Hog Heads coupled our 
two engines onto our train and Scurry and I got sec- 
ond engine onto our train. The conductor counted 
his cars and got the crew's names and the orders. I 
stood and listened to them read these just as if I knew 
what they meant, but I did not know anything about 
what they were reading, as my brother failed to tell 
me anything about a train order or time card. So 



Kent itck v Mountain Life 



03 




FESS AND LESS WHITAKER 
When railroading in Texas 1906-12 



64 History of Corporal f : css Whitakcr 

when everything was in readiness we pulled out. 
When the front engineer blew highball \ took a large 
red handkerchief out of my pocket and tied it to one 
side of my cab and every time \ would throw in a 
scoop of coal I would pretend to wipe the sweat off 
my face just as if 1 was an old head. When I started 
I had 160 pounds of steam and when we went through 
Zita 1 only had (SO pounds, only a distance of six miles. 

Of course, 1 knew nothing of how to scatter my 
coal with the scoop and let the draft place it. F just 
put it in at the door and very soon had a large black 
place in my fire, and after we got past Zita he looked 
at the steam gauge and said, *'I thought you was an 
old head." 

"Hell! I am used to those big baffle doors; I don't 
know nothing about how to lire this little cook stove. 
If you will show me 1 will burn her up for you." I said. 

"Get Up here on my seat," he said, "and I will show 
you." 

So he got down and look his scoop and scaled his 
lire and told me to look, then he took the clinker hook 
and got the coal all scattered and picked her up to 160 
pounds again. He scaled his lire the second time and 
told me to look, then he showed me how to scatter my 
coal with the scoop and I thanked him, and by that 
time we were going through llanny Dawn the hill 
to the water tank. After we left the main line for 
I Main view, 102 miles, I held my engine at 160 pounds 
.-old when we got to Plain view the second engine was 
cut out for a switch engine to load cattle and we 
stayed there fifteen days and 1 showed Scurry that 1 
had learned to be a good fireman on those class of 
ensrines by that time. We grot orders on the fifteenth 



Kentucky Mountain Life 



G5 



day to bring what loads we had and come in, so the 
engine could be washed out, and when I got in I got 
bumped off of my little engine and the next day I 
caught one of them big kind, and as soon as I got on 
the engine I had a new Hog Head and I told him just 
plainly that I knew nothing about how to fire one of 
those big battleships and if he would show me I would 
keep the putty for him. I told him I was used to the 
small engines and he told me to wait until he blew the 
highball out of Amarillo, Texas, for Wellington, 
Kan., and then he would show me, and he did, and I 
kept the putty at 220 pounds and had seventy-six cars 
of sheep and cattle tied to us. Before I got back on 
that trip of about eight days I was getting to be a 
pretty good fireman. It only took me about three 
months until I held a regular engine and was signed 
to a big compound engine, 1186, which I held until I 
was promoted to an engineer in May, 1910. 

On one trip to Cloris, New Mexico, my engineer 
laid off and a man by the name of Brisley was signed 
to my engine 1186. We were called for 5 o'clock that 
night, so I was on time and reported at the round- 
house and went on and got my engine and began to 
clean her up. In about forty minutes the engineer 
came. We run our engine out of the roundhouse on 
the turntable and turned her for the west end and 
pulled up and took water and coal and soon coupled 
onto the train. The engineer blew his sign to test 
the air and in about fifteen minutes two car knockers 
reported the air O. K. and sixty-seven cars. Pretty 
soon the conductor came over with the orders and 
read them and he also had a slow order over the 
bridge west of Hanny and not exceed eight miles per 
hour. About that time I noticed my clinker hook was 



m History of Corporal Fcss Whitaker 

gone, so I had to go back to the roundhouse to get 
one, and after I got my clinker hook I went up by the 
caboose to let the conductor know 1 got one. They 
was about ten old passenger engineers in the caboose 




The author when firing for the Sante Fe R. R. and Engineer Brisley 

dead-heading to Cloris to take the examination on air 
and pumps, as the air car and instructor was at Cloris. 
So when I got on the engine I told Brisley that we 
had a caboose full of old hog heads or engineers dead- 
heading to Cloris. He said: "I'll show them dam 
rascals how to run an engine." 



Kentucky Mountain Life 67 

My engineer began to tell me that the Brotherhood 
of Locomotive Firemen and the Brotherhood of Loco- 
motive Engineers were having trouble over him. He 
went on to say that while he was firing he joined the 
firemen's brotherhood and after he had been promoted 
to an engineer that the engineers wanted him to drop 
out of the firemen's brotherhood and join the Brother- 
hood of Locomotive Engineers and he had refused 
and the engineers were knocking on him. He had 
been married and one of the brakemen had stolen 
Brisley's wife and ran away with her, and I was told 
later that Brisley had a real fine looking wife and he 
was grieving very much and had took to drinking. 
So he was mad, drinking and in trouble and 102 miles 
in front of him, and so he called for a highball from 
the rear and received it and I will say he sure did blow 
a highball that time. As we went through Zita we 
were making sixty-one miles per hour and only seven 
miles to Hanny, where they always shut the throttle 
off and hook up his Johnson bar. When we hit the 
switch at Hanny T noticed Brisley dropped his John- 
son bar two notches and pulled his throttle out some 
more and he had my fire just dancing on the grate. 
I thought he was getting ready to shut the engine off, 
as there was a very large mountain at the west end of 
the Hanny switch where they always shut oft" their 
engines and every once and a while take off five and 
six pounds of air. So it was only about three miles 
to the bridge to where we had the slow orders' so 
when we passed over the hill at Hanny he did not shut 
the engine off. T jumped down and went to throw in 
a scoop of coal. About that time we hit a steep curve 
to the left and the coal went in the engineer's lap 
instead of the boiler. He was running so fast and so 



68 History of Corporal Fcss Whitaker 

many stiff curves that I first threw the coal in the 
fireman's seat and then the engineer's lap and he said, 
"Damn it! throw it in the boiler, not in my lap." T 
growled at him and told him to shut her off and put 
en the air, and he said no, that he was showing the 
Hog Heads in the caboose how to run an engine. T 
knew in another moment we would be dead and I sure 
began to get ready to die. By this time my lights 
were all shook out of the racks and my clinker hook 
and shaker bar had done fell out of the racks. I 
climbed up and got on my seat and fastened my arms 
in the little windows and tried to hold myself on the 
seat, expecting to die any moment. About this time 
we had hit the bridge and just as the engine hit the 
bridge she jumped up about three inches and by good 
luck when the engine came down it hit the rails all 
O. K. and at the foot of the hill there was a water 
tank and we were compelled to take water, so on 
account of the rate of speed she was running she run 
ahead of the water tank about one-half a mile, and 
just as he got her stopped before he could reverse her 
those ten Hog Heads come out of the caboose just 
like they had been shot out a 14-inch gun. And after 
he got her reversed he backed up to the water tank 
and took water and after he got water T simply told 
Brisley I was not afraid, but I did not want to be 
killed by a fool and refused to go, so he set in to beg 
me to go and I could see every inch of the road in my 
mind, and from there on it was uphill and I knew he 
could not run any more. Not thinking of coming 
back, I agreed to go on, so we pulled out and reached 
Texico about 11:50 p. m. There he got one pint of 
whisky and we pulled on over into Cloris and cut off 
from our train and put our engine away, washed up 



Kentucky Mountain Life 



69 



and went to bed. We should have been called at 10 
a. m. next morning, but the callboy could not find us, 
so we were called for 2 p. m. We got on our engine 
and the head brakeman took us over to the stock pens 
and picked up four cars of sheep and took us back in 
the yard to No. 7 track and coupled us up to forty- 
seven more cars of sheep and cattle, and Smyers, 
trainmaster for the A., T. & S. F., came up to our 
engine and said to Brisley: "Brisley you have been 
reported up three times for fast running and I don't 
want to hear of it any more, but I want those cattle 
and sheep in Canadian, Texas, before the dog law 
gets you/' 

He could run without the trainmaster giving him 
any hints, and I began to get scared, for I knew it 
was all down hill from Cloris, N. M., to Canadian, 
Texas, except two hills which w r e had to go up. 

So we received our orders and pulled out. After w r e 
left Texico I don't remember very much what hap- 
pened. He was running so fast I could not think, as 
he was running faster than I could think. Every town 
on that road of three hundred and nine miles was 
cleaned of all the dust. What he did not blow out he 
sucked out with the speed of our train. After I got 
over the awful scare I noticed everybody sure did 
sidetrack for him, and just as we called for the Cana- 
dian station he ran over a flag and through a train, 
splitting six cars of sheep and one car of cattle square 
in two. There were sheep in every man's house, lot 
and yard in Canadian, but by good luck our engine 
run out in the sand and turned over and neither one 
of us hurt. So Brisley got his walking papers and the 
last time I heard from him he was in Mexico working 
for the Mexican Central Railroad. 



70 History of Corporal Fcss Whitaker 

I was promoted to an engineer in 1910, which job 
I held until [ resigned, November, 1911. I then 
returned to Kentucky and went in the mercantile 
business at Goard and during the building of the L. 
& X. Railroad from Jackson, Ky., to McRoberts, Ky., 
and after the road was put through I sold out my 
mercantile business and went to Lexington to get a 
job. The business was very dull and the company did 
not need any engineers and Mr. Kishhammer, the 
trainmaster, gave me a job as brakeman, Lexington 
to McRoberts. I gave my whole attention to the 
company's business, and any time I was asked about 
anything I could tell it and after braking nine months 
I was taken off the road and made depot, freight, 
ticket and express agent and operator at Blackey, Ky., 
which job I held for three years, when I resigned to 
run for Circuit Court Clerk. 

I ran against two large generations of people, S. P. 
Combs, who was the Circuit Court Clerk at that time 
and who understood tricks in an election, and my 
other opponent was G. B. Adams, a young lawyer and 
a Regular Baptist preacher. X T ot knowing anything 
about politics, I was defeated by thirty-six votes. 
There were eleven voting precincts and I carried nine 
of them. 

After the election in 1915 I went to work for Mr. 
D. S. Dudley, president of the Kentucky River Coal 
Corporation. I bought all of the land on Rockhouse 
and Caudill's Branch for him and helped to lease the 
Xo. 4 coal for him, and they have one big lease at the 
mouth of Rockhouse known as the Rockhouse Coal 
Company, owned by three real fine men, Mr. Mc- 
Clanahan, of Charleston, W.Ya., one of the nicest men 
T ever met as a business man, and the other two are 



Kentucky Mountain Life 




72 



History of Corporal I'css Whitaker 



just fine big business men, Wallbolt and Arthur, of 
Toledo, O. Next conies the Marion Coal Company, 
at the mouth of Caudill's Branch. The managers are 
old big, fat, happy-go-lucky men, John Gorman, of 
Hazard, and William Morrison, of Jellico, who are 
splendid gentlemen. With the coal experience then 
comes the Caudill Branch Coal Company on the head 
of Caudill Branch ; same stockholders as the Rock- 
house Coal Company. All of this lies in two miles 
and a half of Blackey, Ky., and the new L. & X. 
branch comes in at Blackey. 

Blackey has one of the best colleges in the State of 
Kentucky. It is managed by Prof. E. V. Tadlock. 
The college was built by Dr. Gurant, of AYilmore, 
Ky., and the land was donated by Jeff Ison. Blackey 
has one large coal operation going on now. The man- 
agers are a bunch of real nice gentlemen with experi- 
ence and are P. J. Cross and J. P. Jones. 

The next big coal company is on Smoot Creek. 
The first company is known as the Smoot Creek Coal 
Company, managed by one of the Knoxville, Tenn., 
big-hearted fellows, who has an open hand for every- 
body, a nice big smile and who has written some 
excellent lectures for Tennessee, Mr. C. P. Price. 
Next are the West Virginia and Kentucky Coal Com- 
pany, managed by two brothers of Virginia with that 
good, clear, good-hearted disposition. Harry is a 
whole-souled man. If you were broke and he had a 
dime he would give you a nickel of it. The other 
brother, T. P., has that good old fighting look on, and 
he put in his part in the Spanish-American War. 
Next are the Amburgey Coal Company, managed by 
two of the real Kentucky blood, Mr. Mathews and 



Kentucky Mountain Life 



73 




HON. W. S. DUDLEY 
President Kentucky River Coal Corporation 



74 



History of Corporal Fess JV hi taker 



Mr. McCluren, of Covington, Ky. Mack is just a 
dandy only he gets his politics mixed up. All three 
of the coal companies on Smoot Creek are working - . 
The Amburgey seam, which is about eight feet with- 
out a parting'. Rockhouse companies are working 
that good old Xo. 4 seam, 56 inches coal, 4 inches 
parting and 11 inches coal. 

After this was all done I resigned from the Ken- 
tucky River Coal Corporation and announced myself 
as a candidate for Jailer of Letcher County, subject 
to the action of the Republican party, August 4, 1917. 
There were already fifteen candidates on the track 
for Jailer and I made the sixteenth man. We all met 
at Whitesburg to draw to see who come first on the 
ballot and I told them all if I drew number seven 
they just as well quit, so we all drew and by good luck 
I got my old lucky number seven. I set out campaign- 
ing and made a speech on Line Fork, then I started 
for the coal fields. I first spoke at Kona\ next at Seco, 
both on Sunday, and I met one real nice gentleman 
who was manager of the Southeast Coal Company, 
Mr. Pfenning, who was and is operating the late 
Wright's coal I wrote about in the beginning. Seco 
is a real nice little city. Xo colored people nor for- 
eign people are allowed there. Xext was at Fleming, 
Ky. T had a big crowd. Lots of other candidates were 
there and everybody spoke. During my speaking; 
judge Day was setting upstairs in the hotel with the 
manager of the Elkhorn Coal Company. After I had 
carried Dick off in a trance he whispered to Judge 
Day, "Lest just elect that d — n fool," and after the 
votes were cried at Fleming I had received two hun- 
dred and thirty-four votes out of two hundred and 
thirty-five. Mr. Coal is a clean-hearted gentleman and 



Kentucky Mountain Life 



stands by his men and his county. He is liked by 
everybody. My next speaking was at Haymen. I 
spoke to the colored people. There were about four 
hundred of them and we had prepared a real good 
supper for them. Had a fine barrel of beer and had 
some good speakers, Congressman John W. Langley, 
Commonwealth Attorney R. Monroe Fields. Mr. 
Noah Bentley, of Jenkins, and others. I was late get- 
ting in. I reached Haymen about 11 p. m. and the 
crowd was coming out. Some run in and told them 
I had come. So the bell was rung and everybody went 
back in and I had to make a different speech if I got 
the crowd stirred up. So there was a big Negro with a 
palm beach suit got up and introduced me. I says: 
"Gentlemen, I am real glad to be with you tonight, 
but sorry that I am late, but I want to say to you col- 
ored brothers I am your Jailer for the next four years 
and I am going to be the Jailer. Nobody is going to 
tell me how to run my jail. Instead of making prison- 
ers out of you I am going to make Christians," and 
everybody said "Amen" and shouted. I am going for 
everybody to read the Bible. "Amen," they shouted 
again, and if they don't by G — d, I will make them 
read it. "Amen," and great cheers went up. All the 
negroes and speakers began to look at me and I told 
them I was going to put the colored men in the col- 
ored department and the white men in the white 
department. I was talking to a gentleman the other 
day, your Commonwealth Attorney, R. Monroe 
Fields, the way I was going to handle my prisoners, 
and he said, "Fess, that won't do; Bill Hall tried that 
and he let some bad negroes get out of the negro de- 
partment." Gentlemen, I mean what I say; if the jail 
won't hold them in by G — d. let the countv build a jail 



76 



History of Corporal Fess Whitaker 




HON. J NO. W. LANG LEY 
The author's political friend 



Kentucky Mountain Life 



77 








LETCHER COUNTY JAIL, BUILT 1908 



^ History of Corporal Fess JVJiitakcr 

that will hold them in. Everybody shouted amen to 
that and yelled "Fess for Jailer." I bluffed off six of 
my opponents that night. Xext we all were billed for 
Hemp Hill, another regular negro speaking- night. 
We had about six hundred negroes out and so I had 
to wait until my turn came as all of the speakers had 
to speak. My turn came about 1 :30. Everybody had 
heard of me and they were all waiting - for my time, 
so I set with patience, and just as I got up I looked 
over the crowd and believe me there were about four 




ABRAHAM LINCOLN 



hundred negroes assembled. Something run all over 
me. Something said, "Fess, wake them up," and I 
•started pounding it to them like Billie Sunday preach- 
ing. I saw that I had them going my way and finally 
I walked off of the stage and down the aisle to 
where an old gray-headed man who had served in 
slavery time. I began to pat his head kindly, hugged 
him up and told him what our dear old friend Lincoln 
had done and I told them that Lincoln was a man of 
nature; he had picked his education from the moon 
and the stars and little rippling streams. His ambition 
was to be elected President of the L nited States so he 



Kentucky Mountain Life 79 

could free the slaves of witches. He was, and he 
released the shackles from four million slaves by this 
time. I had them going* my way then and I took the 
younger class and began to tell them what the Ninth 
and Tenth Cavalry and Twenty-fourth and Twenty- 
fifth Infantry done in 18 ( >8 in Cuba when Roosevelt 
and I had made such a fight and that old Ninth and 
Tenth Cavalry cut the wire fence and let Col. Roose- 
velt through the fence and up the hill with his rough 
riders and the old Ninth and Tenth Cavalry cutting 
their heads oft' with sabers, and there were twenty- 
four pieces in the Twenty-fourth Infantry that played 
the band that won the United States a great battle. 
After we had planted Old Glory on top of the little 
log house there were only two men left in the band: 
one was lying on the ground with a leg broke playing" 
"Marching Through Georgia," and the other had his 
left arm off and was playing "Yankee Doodle." By 
this time I had the crowd shouting and hollering. 
If a man had ever stirred up a crowd I had. 

I and Miss Martha Jane Potter were both to speak 
at Jenkins and the auditorium was running over, full 
of white people and negroes, and they had a splendid 
band. I took Jenkins with a storm, and after Miss 
Potter, daughter of Henry Potter, the coal magnate 
of Letcher County, delivered her speech' I was next 
introduced by Professor Greer. I told them in a very 
funny way that I had to peal to Jenkins very hard 
because she had the votes at Dunham, Burdine and 
Jenkins proper, and that I had none at home because 
I lived in the only Democratic precinct in the county 
and that I had five brothers, forty-three uncles, two 
hundred and seventy-one first cousins, and Jeff Ison, 
my father-in-law, and all were Democrats and I was 



80 History of Corporal Fess Whitaker 

the only Republican, so of course you will all want 
to know how come me to be such a strong Repub- 
lican, so I will tell you. My father died when I was 
very small and left my mother with a house full of 
little orphan children and no money. Mother had two 
old milk cows named Blackey and Whitey, and every 
year prior to Cleveland's administration she would 
sell the two little calves oft" of the cows and buy all 
of us boys a pair of brass-toed shoes, but "God bless 
your soul" during Cleveland's administration they 
failed to have any calves and we all had to go bare- 
footed, so I have been a Republican ever since. 

After the speaking I met some of the nicest gentle- 
men I believe I ever met, such as Mr. Dunlap, John- 
son, Kegon and the general manager of the Consoli- 
dation Coal Company, Mr. Gellete, and the right arm 
of the B. & O. Railroad were on the ground making 
a hard light for me. Mr. McLaughlin will never be 
forgotten by me. I also had sixty-three traveling 
men between Jenkins and Cincinnati that were doing 
all they could for me. They had tried me at Blackey 
for agent for three years and I had a regular travel- 
ing men's meeting at the Whitesburg Hotel and I 
made a strong promise to them: "Gentlemen, if you 
will stand by me and should one of you get in jail I 
will treat you nice and give you three good square 
meals per day and when your time is up I will turn 
you out," so they stood, and when you get the travel- 
ing men for you I will say you have won. and I won 
it by the biggest majority any man ever was elected. 
five hundred and six, over Sol Wright, of McRoberts. 
I received more votes than any man ever did. There 
were eighteen voting precincts in the county and T 



Kentucky Mountain Life 81 

carried seventeen of them and lost the other one by 
one vote and I received six votes more than all of my 
ten opponents together. 

I am now the Jailer of Letcher Comity and have 
thirty-two prisoners in jail. I have Sunday-school 
every Sunday in my jail and preaching twice per 
month ; had four conversions and they told some great 
experiences. I have had my living and prisoner 
department cells painted and water works put in and 
I challenged the State of Kentucky Jailers to cleanli- 
ness, and everybody has got to take their hat off to 
my Courthouse Square. I am now having moonlight 
schools in my jail and I have turned out three young 
men who did not know a letter in the book, can write, 
read and spell. 

I am sure the Jailers of Kentucky can do some great 
work in the moonlight schools, and as we handle the 
toughs and the uneducated and after we can teach a 
man to read he can read where many a man has made 
a mistake. The people have been so nice to so many 
Jailers. About one hundred and twenty jails in Ken- 
tucky, so lets us promise the people of one hundred 
and twenty counties that we will do something good 
for some poor boy or girl. My jail is a nice stone 
building with four bedrooms, dining and cook room, 
woman department, a nice dining-room for the pris- 
oners and only one prisoner department for white and 
colored together, as the colored department was 
destroyed before I got in charge of the jail. 

Letcher County can brag on three things that the 
whole United States and world can't beat. First, she 
has the name of raising the largest man in the world, 
Martin Van Buren Bates, better known as Brother 



® History of Corporal Fess Whitaker 

Bates. He was born twelve miles above Whitesburg 
at the mouth of Boone Fork, where Daniel Boone first 
settled. The property is now owned by Henry Pot- 
ter. When Brother Bates was seventeen years old he 
fought side by side with bad John Wright in the 
cavalry. The first battle they were in was fought on 
Licking River near Salyersville, Ky. Brother Bates 
rode a big white horse give up to be the whitest horse 
in the Civil War. After the close of the Civil War 
Brother Bates come back and lived with his father, 
John W. Bates, at the mouth of Boone. 

Brother Bates' father came from Washington 
County, Va. At the age of twenty-four Brother Bates 
weighed four hundred and eighty-five pounds and 
stood seven feet and four inches tall, and one of his 
boots, number 23, held one-half bushel of shelled corn. 
He joined a circus when he was twenty-eight years 
old and traveled all over the world. He got married 
in' Canada and on one of his trips while in England 
the King and the Queen presented each one of them 
a fine watch. The watches were about the size of a 
saucer. Brother Bates has retired from the circus 
business and is a well-to-do farmer at Seville, Ohio. 
His wife weighed Uvq pounds more than he did. 
They had one child born to them and it weighed 
twenty pounds at its birth and died seasick crossing 
the Atlantic Ocean. Brother Bates is eighty-one 
years old now and has only one brother living, Rob- 
ert Hates (better known as Old Rob), who lives on 
the head of Rockhouse. He is the richest man in 
I, etcher Count}' and Knott County. He is worth 
over one hundred thousand dollars. He was ninety- 
three years old August 5, 1918. Uncle Rob is the 
oldest champion daddy at ninety-three. His oldest 



Kentucky Mountain Life 



83 



child is fifty-seven and youngest seven. Uncle Rob 
has twenty-four children. His descendants are well 
over a hundred. Some say that there are many great- 
grandchildren alone- not counting the grandchildren 
of the great-grandchildren, of whom there are 1 at least 
ten. Uncle Rob confesses that he can't count his 
flock. Outside his children he has thirteen children 
at home yet. The other eleven are married and their 
families are scattered. Uncle Rob has been married 
twice. At home this remarkable Kentucky father is 
still the unquestioned master. His politics are the 
household's. He lives by rule and by rule he governs. 
It don't pay to pamper youngsters. Bring children up 
to respect you and they will respect themselves. 
Children have got to be taught to save. A good wife 
is the best of all; a man can't get ahead without her. 
Women should help their husbands. 

Children are seldom sick in the mountains and 
Uncle Rob says give them a dose of sassafras tea is 
medicine enough. Uncle Rob has not been sick a day 
in his life. He is five feet and eight inches tall and 
weighs one hundred and eighty pounds. He stands 
straight and walks with splendor. He has the shoul- 
ders and chest of a perfect built man. He does not 
smoke or drink. Uncle Rob says he has gone hungry 
many a time to save a quarter and has never been 
sorry of it. One would expect a man who owns most 
of the mountains in his section and who is worth one 
hundred thousand dollars to live in a fine house, but 
Uncle Rob prefers the old house and bare floors like 
the old schoolhouse on Burton Hill. 

The house which Uncle Rob lives in has been built 
seventv-eight vears at the writing of this book. Uncle 



84 History of Corporal Fcss Whitaker 

Rob is on his way to Mount Sterling with a drove of 
cattle, a distance of two hundred miles, horseback. 
Uncle Rob never did have a suit of underwear on and 
never did wear a collar and very fine socks. His wife 
makes hfs socks and shirts. 

The second thing Letcher County can brag about 
is a real mountain dog raised by Henry Mullins on 
the head of Cumberland. The dog w r as as large as a 
real mountain cow. He w r as sold to Sells Brothers' 
show, Big Stone Gap, Va., in 1880 for seven hundred 
dollars. He was taken all over the world and won the 
champion medal, king of all dogs. 

The third was a real pumpkin raised by old Jim 
Hogg of all at the mouth of Tolson Creek. The 
pumpkin weighed one hundred and ninety-six pounds. 
After cutting both ends off any ordinary man could 
crawl through it. 

One of the most peculiar men ever Letcher County 
had was old fighting George Ison, on Line Fork, 
whom we wrote about in the first of the book. In the 
lime of the Civil War the Yankees had stolen all of 
Uncle George's horses and cattle except one old black 
and white pided cow. When spring came he would 
have one of his negroes, named Wesley, to plow the 
old cow and cultivate the land. He would put one- 
half yoke on the old cow and a home-made plow stock 
and plow from one-half of an acre to one acre per 
day. He would milk his old cow every morning and 
evening and make the gravy for his slaves. 

He stayed full of moonshine whisky very near all 
of the time after he lost his first wife. He left Line 
Pork to go courting above Whitesburg to see Aunt 



Ken tucky Mountain Life ^ 

Vina Adams. He had a brinnal cow bringing- to 
Whitesburg to be shot for and the old cow would not 
lead very well and he wanted to get up to Aunt Vina's 
home before dark, so he tied his cow to his old horse's 
tail and put the spur to his old horse, which was well 
known in Letcher County by the name of Blue Jack, 
and just as he crossed the river at Whitesburg the old 
cow got stuck up in the quicksand, and the old man, 
feeling so good and his mind on his "sweetheart," 
then about fifty years old; he looked back to see his 
cow about the time he hit the main street of Whites- 
burg and he noticed that his cow was gone and also 
old "Blue Jack" had lost his tail completely. 

He got James H. Frazier to look after his cow and 
he got one quart as he went through Whitesburg and 
went on to see Aunt Vina. The next day he came 
back to Whitesburg and some man had heard of him 
being such a fighter and told him that he had come 
over two hundred miles to fight him. So he got down 
off of "Blue Jack" and in about fifty minutes old man 
Ison had him well whipped. That was the biggest 
fist and scull fight that was ever fought in the 
mountains of Kentucky. After the fight was all over 
old man Ison set his opponent up a glass of good 
apple brandy and they drank friendly and shook hands 
and parted. 

Old man Ison and Gudson Ingram, both of Line 
Fork, two large, strong men, uneducated, and when 
Letcher County was cut off of Perry County, Letcher 
County had to have a jail house, so the contract was 
let to be built twenty by thirty, and those two big- 
strong men took the contract to deliver all of the win- 
dows and doors and iron fixtures. There were no 



86 



History of Corporal Fess Whitaker 



roads, no teams hardly and a very few wagons, so 
they carried all of the iron on their backs from Lex- 
ington. The}- walked every step over the mountains 
and eveiw step each way. They made three trips in 
one month from Whitesburg to Lexington and re- 
turned and only got thirty-seven dollars for the whole 
job. They averaged one hundred and forty pounds 
apiece per load. On the first trip to Lexington they 
enjoyed theirselves fine and everybody that saw them 
enjoyed themselves. They was the pure typical 
mountain type; wore home-made shoes, called moc- 
casins, old jeans pants and coat made by their wives 
on the old-fashioned looms, and flax shirts. 

Letcher County boasts of having the pure Anglo- 
Saxon language and the pure typical mountain form 
and ways of life and the people of Letcher County 
through its scientific management is at the root of 
successful present enterprise and intelligence in not 
only the lives of bygone men and women but youths 
are looking for a foremost day. 

! will try and describe one of the most peculiar men 
that was ever raised in the mountains, Elisha Ingram. 
Elisha Ingram was born at the mouth of Kingdom 
Come Creek in the year of 1865. When a boy he was 
a peculiar turned boy. When he was about twenty 
years old he could eat more than ten men. He wore 
number thirteen shoes. He lived in the woods most 
of his time and was reported one time to the revenue 
people to be a moonshiner and there were seven mar- 
shals who came from down in the State and made the 
raid. He hid in one of those big caves in the head of 
Line Fork. The marshals went in the cave at 8 o'clock 
in the morning and came out about 2 o'clock in the 
afternoon with Mr. Ingram. 



Kentucky Mountain Life _^ 

They found that he was not a moonshiner, but a 
merchant or a hardware man. When they came out 
they brought twenty-three big- guns and thirty-one 
trunks full of old rags. Mr. Ingram has been seen 
with as many as three trunks on his back at the same 
time, bringing them across the big Black Mountains 
and taking them to his cave or store, as it may be 
called, in the top of the Cumberland Mountain, which 
is one of the world's great sceneries, as well as the 
Mammoth Cave down in the State. 

During the Civil War in the year of 1864 Daw 
Adams, who preached on Burton Hill, was making 
his way through the mountains from his home, three 
miles above Whitesburg, the county seat of Letcher 
County. He stopped over night on the head of Kings 
Creek and stayed with Mr. D. D. Fields, now one of 
the best known lawyers in the mountains of Ken- 
tucky. Mr. Adams had a real bench-legged dog and 
Mr. Fields wanted the dog and so Mr. Adams gave 
him the dog. The dog's name was Swad Dink. Mr. 
Adams never told Mr. Fields that there was anything 
peculiar about this dog. So Mr. Fields was well 
pleased over his dog and the next morning Mr. Fields 
wanted to try his dog and so he set him on a hog, and 
instead of the dog going forwards and running the 
hog he ran it backwards by turning the other end. 
Time makes changes, so Mr. Fields is now the son- 
in-law of Mr. Adams and has one pretty little girl 
named Danola. 

There has been some great men and women raised 
in Letcher County and they have been some very. 
very strange people raised in Letcher County and 
some very bad men and done some awful crimes, but 



vs 



History of Corporal Fess JJhitaker 



what more could be expected of some people who have 
had such a poor chance as men and women born in the 
mountains of Kentucky. There has been lots said 
and wrote about Letcher County and its people that 
is not true. The moonshiners have given dear old 
Letcher a black eye, but thank God that day has 
passed. 

Old Letcher stands first in wealth. If the whole 
united world would shut down all of their coal mines 
Letcher County could furnish the whole united world 
coal for thirty years. We have more timber in 
Letcher County than in any other county in Ken- 
tucky. We have twenty-six big mountains in Letcher 
County well covered with timber, such mountains as 
the Black and Cumberland and others. 

We have some of the richest corporations and com- 
panies in the United States, such as the Consolidation 
Coal Company at Jenkins, Kentucky and the Elkhorn 
Coal Company at Fleming, Ky. As to schools, 
Letcher stands first. Letcher can boast of the best 
of schools and churches. You don't see any of those 
old log schoolhouses any more, but they are the latest 
styles. Likewise are the churches. As to language, 
there is but a very few people who use any more of 
that good old bygone days language. The old spin- 
ning wheels and looms are about all played out. We 
have three large beautiful streams of water flowing 
through Letcher County, the Cumberland River, the 
north fork of the Kentucky River and Rockhouse 
Creek. We have the purest water in the world. The 
air is just fine. Many people come to the mountains 
to get fresh air. 



Kentucky Mountain Life 



We don't have any wild animals in our mountains. 
We have some poison snakes, such as the copperheads 
and rattlesnakes. Clint Cornett last year killed seven- 
teen copperheads and rattlesnakes each on Pigeon 
Ridge of Line Fork, all under one edge of a rock all 
rolled and coiled up together in the same bed just 
•ike owls, prairie dogs, cotton tails and rattlesnakes 
do in Texas in the prairie dog towns. 

While I was in Texas and before I went to railroad- 
ing on the trains an old passenger engineer and I went 
to Davis Mountain bear hunting. We killed two 
black bears and caught one young bear. W 7 e saw 
quite a few droves of antelope and it was a very heavy 
fine to kill one, but we did, and we had some real 
good eating. We was in the western part of Texas 
and came in at El Paso, Texas, on Friday. We went 
over the river into Old Mexico to a big bull fight. It 
sure was something awful to look upon. I will try 
and explain it to you as I saw it. 

It was a holiday, celebrating the big day of Repub- 
lic, the fifth day of May. They put three bulls im- 
ported from Spain against four native bulls. The 
owners from Spain were artists when it come to 
butchering horses. If they had killed a few of the 
ignorant and cruel Mexicans who were riding the 
poor beasts up to be gored to death they would have 
won my applause. One horse was injured six times 
and each time ridden to be gored again, until finally 
killed by the bull. It was enough to disgust old 
"Villa," whom General Pershing run out of Mexico 
in 1915-16, and still men and women and little chil- 
dren went wild and shouted for joy at the sight of 
blood and the suffering of the dumb brutes. 



90 



History of Corporal Fcss Whitaker 



The engineer was an American and had been born 
in Louisville,, Kv., but was working for the Mexican 
National Railroad and had been hurt in a wreck and 
had a six months' layoff. After the bull fight we 
visited the noted Church of Guadalupe, which is said 
to have been built by Montezuma in memory of the 
angel Guadalupe. After going through the church 




FESS WHITAKER 



and seeing the "sirape" (blanket) which this angel 
saint wore on her riving trip from Heaven to Mexico 
City, we climbed the hill to the graveyard where all 
the noted warriors are buried. It covered a couple of 
acres, and a guard with a rifle and sword is kept on 
duty night and day. On coming to old General Santa 
Anna's grave I thought of poor Davy Crockett and 
his brave followers, who met their fate in the Alamo 



Kentucky Mountain Life 



91 



at San Antonio, Texas, through the inhuman blood 
craving of this same old general. The earth mound 
where he sleeps was plastered over with all kinds of 
fancy many colored pieces of broken chinaware. One 
particular pretty piece took my eye and I told the 
engineer, Mr. Dovis, that it would be in my cabinet 
of curiosities if it should cost me a heavy fine. The 
engineer said, Fess, that it would mean possibly 
death or a long term in a Mexican dungeon if I were 
caught stealing from this "big chief's" grave, but 
when he found that I was determined to risk it with 
this copper-colored son of old Montezuma he agreed 
to assist me by steering the guard away to another 
part of the graveyard and try and keep his back 
towards me by asking him questions about the city, 
which lay at our feet in plain view. The guard stood 
in sight with the seat of his white cotton pants 
towards me when I climbed over the sharp painted, 
tall iron pickets and secured the piece. I wondered 
if poor old Davy Crockett turned over in his grave to 
smile at me. 

David Crockett's parents died when he was a very 
small boy and he had seven brothers older than him 
and he soon learned to use his mouth and fist. Poor 
little Crockett when a boy had nobody to sing him 
to sleep or teach him a prayer. Davy Crockett was 
born August 17, 1786, in Limestone, Tenn. He was 
born in a little old log hut with no floor in it. 

Crockett's ambition was to "go ahead." He was 
made Colonel during the Indian war, then he was 
sent to the Legislature. David Crockett was a great 
bear hunter. When war broke out with Texas and 
Mexico he pulled out for the West. 



92 



History of Corporal Fess Whitaker 



After he got to Fori Worth he bought him a Mus- 
tang pon}' and rode all over the plains and had many 
a good race with buffaloes, as Texas was well covered 
with all kinds of wild animals then. After hunting 
about two months he pulled straight for San Antonio. 
Texas, and soon was in the Fortress of Alamo, where 
the great fight lasted for sixty days. lie was received 
in the fort with shouts of welcome. They had all 
heard of Col. Crockett through the influence of the 
Texas rangers. Most of them from the United States 
had declared their independence of Mexico rule and 
had set up a government of their own. 

Col. Travis was in command of the fortress. They 
only had one hundred and fifty men in the fort and 
had to go up against the whole Mexican army. The 
Mexican army fired on the fort in February with 
President Santa Anna at the head, whose grave 1 
stole my pieces of chinaware off of. One morning 
Crockett was awakened by a shot against part of the 
fort in which he was sleeping. He dressed in a hurry 
and before they took the fort he had shot six gunners 
dead from behind a cannon that had been placed in 
the front of the Alamo. Day by day the fortress of 
the besieged grew darker and darker. There was no 
hope of aid, food and water, all had failed them. 
David Crockett kept a journal of the daily happen- 
ings in the fortress. On the sixth day of March the 
entire Mexican army attacked the Alamo and the 
resistance was desperate. When the fort was taken 
only six men of its defenders were living. Poor little 
David Crockett was one of them. He was found in 
an angle of the building behind a breastwork of Mex- 
icans whom he had slain. 



Kentucky Mountain Life °^ 

It is said that in the assault upon the Alamo the 
Mexicans lost more than a thousand men. The six 
prisoners were taken before Santa Anna, President 
of Mexico. Crockett strode along-, fearless and 
majestic. Santa Anna was displeased that the pris- 
oners had been spared so long, frowned and said that 
he had given other orders concerning them. The 
swords of his men gleamed and they rushed upon the 
unarmed prisoners. The dauntless Crockett gave the 
spring of a tiger toward the dark leader, Santa Anna, 
but before he could reach him he had been cut down 
by a dozen swords. Crockett's last words were, "Lib- 
erty and independence forever." At the death of 
Crockett he was not quite fifty years old. 

Forty years ago there was lots of trouble and feuds 
in Letcher County. Will try and give the public a 
true story about two killings by the same man and 
both men that was killed were Banks'. Link Banks 
was killed forty years ago by J. H. Frese, and William 
Banks eleven months ago by J. H. Frese. I now have 
Mr. Frese in my jail under a sentence of life waiting 
to hear from the Court of Appeals. 

Early in the eighties Letcher County, Ky., now a 
very rich and flourishing mountain county, was the 
scene of innumerable feuds. So bitter was the feel- 
ing that the Judge of the Circuit Court and the 
Commonwealth's Attorney did not dare punish 
any of the feudists, knowing that a vigorous prosecu- 
tion and a conviction of the member of either faction 
would be followed by their own murder at the hands 
of the adherents of that party. Cases were on the 
docket that had to be tried, and the Governor 
appointed Judge William L. Jackson, of Louis- 



94 History of Corporal Fess Whitaker 

ville, to try them. It was understood that there 
was not a lawyer in the district who would act as 
Commonwealth's Attorney on these trials, and that 
it would be necessary to procure a Commonwealth's 
Attorney from some other district, and Judge Jack- 
son announced that he would appoint Major W. R. 
Kinney, of the Louisville bar, to act as prosecutor. 

In those days there were no shorthand writers in 
any part of Kentucky except Louisville, and it was 
arranged for one to go 'along so that in the event of a 
conviction and the necessity for a bill of exceptions 
it could be easily and promptly made. A party of six 
men started from Louisville. The court never did 
know what the other three went for, but inferred they 
were a bodyguard, as they were all members of the 
State militia. Railroads are now running through Let- 
cher County, and the boom town of Jenkins is just 
across the mountains from Whitesburg, then, as now, 
the county seat. But in those days they had to ride 
horseback 100 miles across the country to get here. 
They went from Richmond to Paintsville, to Preston- 
burg and up the Big Sandy Valley to Whitesburg, 
and going up every man of them wanted the best look- 
ing horse to ride. Coming back they all fought for the 
quietest looking mule. Traveling in the Kentucky 
mountains a sure-footed mule is a jewel ; but they 
didn't know that when they started out. 

Well, they blew in on Saturday night and were 
all so dead beat that they wanted to get to sleep as 
soon as they could. Just before they went to bed the 

proprietor of the hotel (Jim S ) came to the room 

for something and saw them standing in front of a 
couch with long white nightshirts on. He stared at 



Kentucky Mountain Life 95 

them and seemed stupefied. Finally he managed to 
ask them what that was they had on. 

"A nightshirt," one said. 

"Do men sleep in them thai* things whar you come 
from?" 

One assured him that they did. 

"Well, I'll be damned !" he said, and the next day 
they found he had surreptitiously taken their night- 
shirt out of their room to show some of his friends 
what the "furriners from down below" slept in. 

They got up in the morning, and, stepping out 
of the building which by courtesy they called a hotel, 

they saw a mountaineer named Bill D with 

his trousers in his boots, the typical long, fierce-look- 
ing mustache, and his pistol hanging at his left side. 
They had not been shaved since they left Louisville. 
They had been on the road about a week and needed 
a shave badly, and, addressing the mountaineer, one 
said: 

"I beg your pardon, sir, but will you kindly tell me 
where the barber shop is?" 

When he turned his face on them they almost start- 
ed to run from him. They did not know that they had 
said anything to provoke anger, but in all their life 
they had never seen as vicious a look as he gave them 
as he bellowed: 

Barber shop? Hell! You know thar hainVno barber 
shop in this country, and we don't 'low for you'uns 
to come up to this place and make fun of we'uns." 

They hastened to assure the gentleman that it had 
never occurred to them that there w T as any place where 
they didn't have a barber shop, and they said to him : 

"You see we need a shave, and we must have one. 
How on earth can we get shaved?" 

"Shave yourself," he said. 



90 



History of Corporal Fess Whitaker 



"But," said we, "there are two reasons why we can't 
shave. We haven't any razor, and in the second 
place we can't." 

"Well," he said, "go over and see Jim Frese." 

He directed us to Mr. Frese's place and we went 
over there and found a nice-looking gentleman about 
thirty-rive years of age, whose very appearance put 
us at ease. We stated to Mr. Frese the object of our 
errand, told him that we did not know there were no 
barber shops here and we had not brought a raz< >r. He 
said he had just finished shaving, which sounded good 
to us after our experience with the mountaineer on 
the hotel porch, and that he would be delighted to let 
us use his razor. We took the utensils, lathered up one 
man and began shaving. He watched the process. 
About every three pulls he made with the razor he cut 
himself twice. We remember it was a very keen razor, 
too. He noticed the poor job he was making and said 
to him : 

"You are not accustomed to shaving yourself?" 
"No," said he, "I have never shaved myself in my 
life before." 

He offered to shave the crowd and we thanked him 
and told him we would be pleased to have him do it 
and he leaned one of the men back in an ordinary high 
chair, stretched his head back and Mr. Frese began 
shaving him. 

Mr. Frese's house was well kept, neat and clean, 
much more so than that of any other moun- 
taineer with whom we had come into contact in the 
journey across the country, and his language was 
well chosen and grammatical, llis whole appearance 



Kentucky Mountain Life ^ 

betokened a man of affairs in the community. We 
thought it a splendid time to commence getting in- 
formation. 

We remember distinctly that he used the word 
"murder" instead of "killings." He was pulling the 
razor over our taut neck just about the jugular vein, 
and he said: 

"Well, the last man who was killed, I killed him." 

We gave a start, and it was quite a bit of luck that he 
was not cut, so great had been our involuntary jerk. 
Immediately he said: 

"Do you want a close shave?" 

"No, just once over ," he responded hurriedly. 

It afterward turned out that Mr. Frese was, as we 
had sized him up, one of the leading citizens of that 
whole section. For anything you wanted or anything 
you wanted to know, you had to apply to Jim Frese. 
And this very thing had gotten him into trouble. 

One morning Link Banks, a mountaineer, came into 
Whitesburg, tanked up on moonshine whisky, and, 
meeting Black Shade Combs, another mountaineer, 
said to him : 

"I came in to kill somebody this morning, and I 
just believe I'll kill you." 

The prospective corpse was not "heeled," as he was 
not in any feud just then, and was not expecting 
trouble, but he knew that he would have to act, and 
quickly, by his wits, or he would be shot, and he 
turned on the fellow and said carelessly: 

"Oh, pshaw, don't kill me; kill Jim Frese." 



H - - - iml Fess Whitaker 

"Well, I believe I will," and Link Banks, the killer, 
£ger« "to Jim I He had n 

had a particle uble with Mr. 

up in the n had ever had. but he walked 

here } as behind the 

and raised his gun and cut loose at him. He mi- 
the and Frese dropped down behind the 

counter, ran some twelve or rif: _ ng his 

1 as he went, and g :hat distan m where 

Link Banks, the mount ted him 

g :he drop on the latter before he could change the 
direction of his pistol and killed him. 

The Circuit Court was in session and a majority 

grand jurors were in Mr. re at the time and 

saw the whole occurrence. L'pon the convening 

rt the grand jury requested the Commonwealths 

raw up an indictment against Jame^ 

Frese for manslaughter and submit it to them. Thi;< 

- done, and about ten minutes after the grand 
jurors went to their room they returned and said they 
had a partial report to make and handed back the 
indictment against James manslaughter 
with the word ;. it "Dismissed." Frese was 
never further brought before the court on the ch: _ 

But we did not know all this when Mr. Fr<.~ 
calmly pulling that razor over one of the men's neck 
and saying 

"The last man who was killed. I killed him." 

Even in those feud days there were a great many 
law-abiding Christians in the mountains, and it 

- our endeav cultivate friendly rela: 
with as many of thes - we could. Judge 
Tacks* »n had sternly adm isl le par: 
pursue this c 



Kentucky Mountain Life 



99 



I >ne Saturday evening when court adjourned early 
to allow the witnesses to get out to their homes for 
Sunday, we noticed in an end of the town which I had 
not yet explored, a long, low, wide building, and I 
inquired of R. B. Bentley, one of the residents sitting 
near me, what that building was. 

"'That," he said, "is a church house." 

"'A church! Why, do you ever have services up 
in this section?" 

"Yes." he said, "about eight or ten months ago thar 
was a circuit rider come along and we had meetin'. 
We only have meetin's when somebody comes along. 
We hain't got no regular preacher." 

"Well." said one, anxious to get solid with all 
churchgoers, "we are going to have services tomor- 
row morning." 

"Who's gwine to preach?" he said. 

( me of them said: "Major \Y. R. Kinney, the Prose- 
cuting Attorney, teaches a Bible class at home. He 
i- the finest talker in the United States, bar nobody, 
and T will get him to preach." 

We were not speaking in hyperbole when we were 
telling him of Major Kinney's attainments as a ora- 
tor. \Ye have reported all orators of the past quarter 
of a century, and we have never heard his equal. He 
had the vocabulary of a Proctor Knott or President 
Lincoln. He had diction and voice equal t<» \\ . C. P. 
kinridge. He had the dramatic instinct of John P. 
rrish and Bourke Cochran, and as to fluency of speech 
William Jennings Bryan is tongue-tied compared 
with him. This was the character of orator that 
§ >ing to turn loose on that mountain congrega- 
n. 



100 History of Corporal Fcss Whitaker 

So the news was spread that we were going to have 
"meetin' " next morning. Saturday evening we went 
over to the church house — everything in the 
mountains is a house. The court is a courthouse, the 
jail is a jailhouse, the hotel is a tavernhouse, etc. 

They had a small organ in it and we tried to find the 
organist and choir. We learned they did not have an 
organist, but the}- had about eight or ten big strong- 
voiced singers, and, as they played the organ after a 
fashion, we took the bunch over and we rehearsed 
four or five hymns. 

The next morning at service we had a very good 
crowd. In fact, everybody in the town was there. 
Before the preaching it occured to us that the 
Major, being such a dyed-in-the-wool Methodist and 
so well posted on the tenets and dogmas of that faith, 
the temptation would be for him to preach a doctrinal 
sermon. We knew that the Baptists and Presbyteri- 
ans were the strong denominations up in that section 
and we did not think Arminian doctrines would ap- 
peal to Calvinists, so we took the Major to one side 
and told him that no doctrinal sermon went; that 
Christ crucified to save sinners was all that he should 
preach, and he agreed to it and preached a sermon the 
only equal of which he preached later that day. 

When the services were over very few went to the 
Major; they all came to thank the remainder of us for 
the wonderful sermon we had procured for them and 
immediately requested that we have "meetin' " again 
that night. Of course we agreed. 



K e ntucky Mountain Life ^1 

To this day those two sermons are discussed and 
gone over by the old residents. 

Early in the month of November, 1918, William 
Banks, of Smoot Creek, came to Whitesburg to give 
his depositions in a suit filed against J. H. Frese for 
destroying his peace. Mr. Banks had sued Air. Frese 
for $10,000 damages. His lawyer. Air. Lewis, of 
Hyden, Ky., was in town, and Air. Banks walked up 
and into the courthouse and went in the Sheriff's 
office and asked about Mr. Lewis, if he was in town. 
He was informed that he was in Air. Hawks' office, 
which was somewhere in the Bank building. Air. 
Banks walked out of the courthouse, up the sidewalk 
about fifteen feet and across Alain street towards the 
First National Bank building, where the lawyer was. 
Just as he got in front of Lewis Brothers' store Air. 
Banks slapped his hand on his breast and hollowed 
and ran into Lewis' store and fell. He died in about 
five minutes with a thirty by fifty bullet hole square 
through him, hitting him in the back just under the 
shoulder blade out in front by the left nipple. 

Nobody saw r the shooting, but the bullet came very 
near killing Judge Sam Collins, and lodged in the 
window sill of the First National Bank. In about ten 
minutes Sheriff Charlie Back, Commonwealth's At- 
torney R. Alonroe Fields and County Attorney F. G. 
Fields located the bullet in the window sill and, 
searching its range, it proved to be the shot fired from 
the back door of Frese's store building. So they went 
in Mr. Frese's store and he was sweeping and they 
told him they wanted to search for the gun. He told 
them to help themselves. So on searching they found 
two big forty-five pistols and a regular army rifle, and 



102 History of Corporal Fess Whitaker 

not one of them had been fired. So they took the 
weapons with them and put a guard around the Frese 
store. They went and cut the bullet out of the win- 
dow sill in the First National Bank and the ball was 
so large it would not lit any gun that could be found 
in Whitesburg. 

So the Commonwealth's Attorney, R. Monroe 
Fields, was not satisfied with the search in Frese's 
store and went in the second time, and on arriving 
the second time he told Mr. Frese he was not satis- 
fied with the search and wanted to search again. Mr. 
Frese told him to search all he wanted to, but he was 
sure there were no more guns in the store. Mr. Frese 
had fired the deadly weapon and had made a regular 
pocket under his counter to hide the gun when he got 
the chance to fire his deadly shot into Banks after he 
had taken Mr, Banks' wife. 

The Commonwealth's Attorney searched good the 
second lime and was about to find the gun and Mr. 
Frese began to ge\ seared and tried to lead him away 
from the spot and to look behind the hats on top of 
the shelves, so this made Mr. Fields know he was 
close to the gun, and after moving three planks he 
pulled her out of her deathly hidden hole. The gun 
was >till hot and the powder was in the barrel and 
the bullet that was taken out of the window sill jusl 
fit the gun that was found last, thirty l>v fifty. 

By this time Mr. Jesse Day, Justice of the Peace. 
had issued a warrant for Mr. Frese, accusing him. and 
lie was placed in jail. ( hi the next day. November 10, 
the examining trial was held by Judge 1 1 T. Day and 
he was held over to answer such indictment that the 
grand jury may return without bond, [anuary term 






Kentucky Mountain Life 



103 



the judge, John F. Butler, was sick, and when the 
April term of Circuit Court came Air. Frese was in- 
dicted for willful murder in the first degree and his 
case- was continued until the August term. An order 
was made to bring the jurors from Clark County, as 
Frese swore that he could not get a fair trial in 
Letcher County and a change of venue overruled. 

So Mr. Jim Tolliver, the Sheriff of Letcher County, 
brought seventy good men from Clark County, and a 
splendid jury of twelve men was selected from that 
body of men. Now, our Circuit Judge. J. F. Butler, 
became sick again, as he is in bad health and had to 
quit again, so all the lawyers of the bar and the attor- 
neys on both sides agreed to appoint the Hon. H. C. 
Faulkner, of Hazard, Ky., to try the Frese case. 
The jury selected was : 

W. G. Butler, W. B. Sudduth, 

W. A. Judy, J. H. Riggs, 

A. F. Mastin, M. L. Mareland. 

Zack Brown, B. C. Taylor, 

Elburge Babor, W. E. Rice, 

Zane Ellis, W. C. Taylor. 

The prosecuting attorneys were Hon. Grant For- 
rester, of Harlan, Ky. ; Commonwealth's Attorney R. 
Monroe Fields and County Attorney F. G. Fields. 
The attorneys for the defendant were: Lawyer Floyd 
Byrd, of Lexington; W. K. Brown, Whitesburg; Sen- 
ator Ed Hogg, Paris; Judge Benton, Yv nichester; D. 
D. Fields, Dug Day and David Hayes, Whitesburg: 
\Y. C. Hearing, Louisville, and Hon. Bill May, 
Jenkins, Ky. 

The Commonwealth finished in four days and 
taking the proof of the defendant's side finished in 



104 



History of Corporal Fess Whitaker 



three days. Then the argument began, of which 
Judge Benton was first, then F. G. Fields, Senator 
Hogg, Grant Forrester and Judge Byrd. Then R. 
Monroe Fields finished. The argument from the 
defendant's side was very poor. The attorneys left 
the case completely and all they done was to make 
fun of Letcher Count}- and its officers. The attorneys 
for the Commonwealth stayed with the case and the 
proof and a verdict was rendered in about fifty min- 
utes for life in the pen. 

The first vote was seven for the chair, four for life 
and one for two to twenty-one years. When the jury 
asked the Judge for pen and ink to write the verdict 
with the Judge ordered me to bring out the prisoner. 
The courthouse bell was rung and the courthouse was 
full in ten minutes. The jury came out of the jury 
room and took their seats in the jury box and the 
Judge asked them if they had a verdict and they 
answered, "We have," and the Judge ordered them 
to read it and it was read. If I ever saw an intelli- 
gent jury in my life that was one. After the verdict 
was read the attorneys for Frese asked for a new trial 
and a change of venue, which was overruled by Judge 
H. C. Faulkner. Then the attorneys for Frese took 
the case to the Court of Appeals for a new trial and 
change of venue and were granted sixty clays to hear 
from the Court of Appeals. 

Mr. Frese is a very wealthy man. He owns all 
kinds of coal and timber land. 

The Letcher County docket stands clear without 
a murder case on the book now — thank God for that 
— and I am glad I have lived to see old Letcher stand 
ahead in law and order. We must give the Hon. J. 



Kentucky Mountain Life 



105 




R. MONROE FIELDS 
Commonwealths attorney, 35th Judicial District, Letcher and Pike^Counties 



lOi 



History of Corporal Fess Whitaker 



F. Butler, Judge of the Thirty-fifth district, and also 
our Commonwealth's Attorney, R. Monroe Fields, 

credit for nine-tenths of it. 

R. Monroe Fields was born on the head of King's 
Creek at the foot of the Laurel Mountains. He never 
was in college, hnt got what education he has in a 
very homely schoolhouse. Me was granted law- 
license to practice law when he was eighteen years 
old. Mr. Fields' first case was a very funny case. 
William Mclntire, merchant at the mouth of Rock- 
house, had sued Andy Crase for $300 for store ac- 
count. When the case was called Mr. Fields stated 
to the court that you could not bring a suit in a magis- 
trate's court over S200, so Mr. McTntire agreed to 
knock off one hundred dollars. Mr. Fields claimed 
that he had paid the account in full and also claimed 
limitation on all the account except ten cents' worth 
of horseshoe nails which had been bought inside of 
two years. Mr. Fields showed the court where an 
account was over two years old you could not bring 
suit, and so Mr. Dixon, the magistrate, took Mr. Mc- 
lntire out and read him the law and he agreed to 
knock off the other $2(30, as he did not want to get 
stuck for the costs, and he agreed to law it out for the 
ten cents' worth of horseshoe nails. A jury was 
called and the court began to take the proof. The 
case lasted something like two hours. The case got 
very hot. Both parties accused each other of swear- 
ing lies and the court threatened in fine them if they 
did not hush up that talk. So finally the case was 
finished and both -ides of the case was argued on. 
< )ne side was argued on by Mr. Fields and the other 
by Mr. Mclntire. an uneducated merchant. 



Kentucky Mountain Life 



107 



After the argument was over the instructions were 
given the jury, and after being out about one hour the 
jury came in and reported that they could not agree. 
The court then sent them back in the jury room the 
second time to make a verdict, if possible. After 
something' about one-half an hour they reported the 
second time that they could not agree, so the court 
sent them back the third time and asked them, if pos- 
sible, to agree. The}- were out this time only about 
fifteen minutes and reported that they could not 
agree, as there were only three and three. So the 
jury was dismissed and both sides agreed to pay his 
part of the costs and the suit to be settled, which was 
agreed upon. So Mr. Fields won his case for his 
client, Air. Crase, and received his five ($5) dollar fee 
out of a ten-cent suit for horseshoe nails. 

Since that time Mr. Fields has won some very large 
cases in different Circuit Courts and the Government 
courts and has been elected once County Attorney 
and twice Commonwealth's Attorney of the Thirty- 
fifth Judicial District of Letcher County, which was 
cut off of Perry County. 

The first County Judge was Nat Collins, son of Jim 
Collins, and a very strong preacher, who came here in 
1806 from North Carolina and was making his way 
for the Bluegrass section. There were eight men and 
women and Preacher Collins led the bunch. They 
had come by the way of Cumberland Gap and did not 
know how to get across the Stone Mountain into the 
Bluegrass region. There was no Cumberland Gap 
tunnel then or any railroads, only a wild wilderness. 
The bunch came up Powell's River to where Wise. 
Va., is now, and struck out through the Pound Gap 



ias 



History of Corporal Fess Whitaker 




co Z 

Z 3 

2 8 

V a 

z 2, 

< J 

I 00 

< c 

z -" 

si 



Kentucky Mountain Life 109 

and on to the head of Kentucky River and down the 
river to where Whitesburg is now located. There 
was not a family living in Letcher County then, as 
Daniel Boone had left his camp at the mouth of 
Boone's Fork and went to the fort at Boonesborough, 
so they passed through where Whitesburg now is and 
up Sandlick Creek and over a hill on to Camp Branch. 
It w r as just before Christmas and they all went up a 
small drean under a cliff and laid out. The next 
morning the snow was six feet deep and they were all 
covered with snow. The snow lasted about three 
months, so they lay up all winter and the men w r ould 
kill deer and wildturkey and they all had a very good 
time camping out. 

The next spring Jim Collins settled at the mouth 
of Camp Branch, known as Colson, Ky. His son, Nat 
Collins, was Letcher County's first County Judge, and 
Judge Nat Collins had a son named Madison Collins, 
Jr., who died at Colson, Ky., a year ago at a ripe old 
age. 

Old Judge Nat Collins is a great-great-grandfather 
of our present County Judge, Sam Collins. Old Judge 
Nat Collins was a great man during his day. He 
represented twenty mountain counties in Congress 
and in the Senate. 

Stephen Hogg, a great-uncle of my mother, was 
the first Sheriff of Letcher County. Hiram Hogg 
donated ten acres of land to the county where Whites- 
burg now stands to build the courthouse and jail, to 
draw the town back down the river one mile from 
where Judge Nat Collins held his court, which was 
held in one of the old mountain log cabins built by 
the old settlers in 1806-1807-1808. 



11(1 



History of Corporal Fess JVhitak 



er 





JUDGE SAM COLLINS 
January 1st, 1918-22 




Kentucky Mountain Life 



in 




LETCHER COUNTY COURT HOUSE, BUILT 1898 



112 



History of Corporal Fess Whitaker 



After Letcher was cut off from Perry and made a 
county, Hiram Hogg was the first representative of 
Letcher County to be sent to the State Capitol as a 
lawmaker. Letcher County's present courthouse was 
built in 1898. We have a beautiful courthouse and 
square. Our present County Judge is young- Sam 
Collins, who has done more for Letcher County in 
the way of morals and bringing old Letcher to the 
front than any man in the county. He was Deputy 
Collector and Commissioner for years and he sure 
put the moonshiners out of Letcher County, and 
since he has been Judge he has sure put the whisky 
out of the county. I went in office the same day he 
did and there were thirty-seven prisoners turned over 
to me by ex-Jailer Bill Hall. Judge Collins kept me a 
good bunch of boarders, as many as eight moon- 
shiners per day, until he proved to them and to the 
people of Letcher County that rnoonshining could 
not be carried on in Letcher County as long as he was 
County Judge, and by his noted work he has cut my 
boarding house down only to two prisoners. 

He is doing lots for Letcher County and is spend- 
ing lots of money on the county roads. That is the 
kind of a Judge we need during this awful war for 
freedom. He is always sure he is right and then goes 
ahead. 

I will try and describe the log house that my poor 
old widowed mother worked so hard to keep us and 
to raise and educate her eight children. We are all 
pleased to know that we had a mother who could see 
the future as she did. Her great ambition was to edu- 
cate us and then we could be some use to her and to 
the world. The time lias come that unless you have 
an education you are left out. 



114 



History oj Corpora! ['ess Whitaker 



The house is made out of two double log rooms, six- 
teen by eighteen feet. The rooms are eight by six- 
Teen feet. The logs are hewed and the cracks were 
daubed with mud, but you will notice the mud has all 
about fell out of the cracks and nobody there to help 
mother put it back, as all of the children are married 
and gone from the old home. You will notice the 
hand-split boards, or shingles, made with a frow and 
hand mall. You will also notice the old-fashioned 
chimney. This dear old typical Kentucky mountain 
log house is where \ spent my best boyhood days. 
There is nothing like Mother and Home. You will 
notice the author in the front yard near the cedar 
tree, where my dear old mother cut the switches and 
gave me such a whipping and put long' division run- 
ning through my brain that has caused me to be a 
man. 

One room has a window in it. This we all called 
the lower room. That was the room in which I gave 
my mother and four brothers the money that T worked 
out for them at Stonega. My mother sometimes has 
nightmares in her sleep, and Dr. Gid Whitaker, of 
Whitesburg, Ky., has the same thing sometimes. 
After we all got grown our sister, Julia, came home 
on a visit from Texas and we all would sit Up and 
talked until about 11 o'clock in the night and then we 
all went to bed, and this is the way we slept : 

My wife and I in the lower room. Dr. Little and 
wife also in the same room, and Mr. Gid and his wife 
in one bed, mother and Jessie, daughter of Julia, in 
"lie bed, and Julia in the other bed. All three of the 
last beds were in the upper room. So about 2 (.'clock 
Dr. Gid got to dreaming about getting his head hung 



Kentucky Mountain Life 



w: 



in the iron bed at the head of the bed and it turned 
into a nightmare. And Dr. Gid began hollowing. 
"Oh, ma!" and his wife nailed him by his nightshirt 
and about that time Dr. Little nailed him and they 
turned the table over and broke up all of the dishes, 
and bv that time mother and lulia were scared to 




JOHN COMBS BARLOW 
Letcher County's last fugitive 

death, and finally I got to him and got him quiet. 
After the scare got off of us all we had a good laugh 
and never did go back to bed again that night. And 
Julia said that she did not want to see anv more night- 
mares. 

There is but one mountain fugitive left. The above 
picture is the likeness of John Combs Barlow, one of 
the men I caus'ht thirteen rears agfo on the head of 



Kentucky Mountain Life 117 

Island Branch. Up until yet he is still an outlaw. I 
now have him in my jail under an indictment for an 
awful crime. When the Commonwealth gets through 
with him he will he quiet and a good, law-abiding 
citizen. 

In the time of the Civil War there was only one 
real battle fought in Letcher County. It was fought 
on Crase's Branch, one and one-half miles from the 
mouth of Rockhouse. The rebels had gathered at 
Branson's up in a big flat about one-fourth of a mile 
up on the branch. They had taken refuge in an old 
typical Kentucky mountain log cabin with only one 
door and one chimney. They had prepared in that 
cabin to fight until the end, like Colonel Travis and 
Crockett did in the Alamo. The reader will take 
notice of the bullet holes in the old log house around 
the window and the door. 

This house was built in 1849, but the old roof has 
all decayed and has been covered again with galvan- 
ized roofing, but the old mud chimney and the log 
walls are just the same. 

The following picture is Sheriff James Tolliver and 
the moonshine still that was raided by Judge Sam Col- 
lins and Sheriff Jim Tolliver on September 15, 1918. 
It was found on the head of Bottom Fork, tributary 
to the north fork of the Kentucky River, which 
empties in at Mayking, Ky. The still is a fifty-gallon 
still. It was a fine outfit, five big hodges of beer 
and a real big trough cut out in a big tree which had 
fallen to slop the hogs in. 



Us 



History of Corporal Fess Whitaker 



Sheriff Tolliver is doing sonic real good work as a 
Sheriff. He and his deputy sure have put the moon- 
shiners to running". 




SHERIFF J. D. TOLLIVER 
With a captured still 

I want to say that the people of Letcher County 
were the worst surprised set of people that ever was 
when the Negroes, Italians. Dagoes, dump carts and 
mules and horses began to pull into Whitesburg 
from Stonega and Appalachia, Va., in 1 ( )10 to begin 



Kentucky Mountain Life 119 

work mi the L. & N. Railroad, which was a new con- 
struction from Jackson to McRoherts, to the greatest 
coal fields in the world. The railroad right of way 
had been surveyed many times, hut the good old citi- 
zens never thought it could he built, and finally they 
got a hunch of men to get the right of way, which 
the biggest part of the citizens had signed up for $50 
per acre. So it w r as good for one year, and finally 
the contract was let to build the road, and then here 
came the people. 

There were no colored people in Letcher Countv 
or any foreign immigrants of any kind, and when 
they began to drop in like birds the good old citizens 
did not know what was going to happen. In the 
month of November, when the trees were shedding 
their leaves and going back to dust like we all will 
some time, there came an awful and terrible roaring 
up the dear old Kentucky River in Letcher County, 
and wdiat could it be only Conductor Spot Combs on 
the first train that ever was run into Letcher County. 
It was a work train laying the first steel into the 
county. It was on Friday and the news went all over 
the county just like wildfire. So there was a large 
bridge to be set in south of Ulvah the following Sun- 
day and I believe there were three thousand people 
gathered to see the train come to set in the bridge. 
They had rode horseback and in wagons, which were 
pulled by the old-fashioned oxen, and lots of old 
people in sleds. They had brought horse feed and 
grub for themselves. They were all sitting around 
the bridge, scattered upon the hill under the beech 
trees and ivy and laurel, and about 10:50 the work 
train came. She was making speed at the rate of 
about Uxc miles per hour, and when the engine blew 



120 History of Corporal Fess Whitaker 

for the bridge the old women threw their pipes down 
and started to run, also many of the twenty-year-old 
men did the same thing. The biggest part of the 
horses got scared and run away, some in wagons and 
some in sleds. I believe that was the biggest day 
[ ever saw in Letcher County. A train is an old thing 
now. I can only call to my memory two people who 
have never seen a train or rode on one, and they live 
in about five miles of Blacker, and they don't want 
to see or ride on it. 

There have been many changes in Letcher County 
since 1911. It doesn't seem like the same country. 
So many new towns, people and coal companies. We 
have about twenty through freights daily and two 
locals and four passengers, except on Sundays, and 
since the war we have only had two passenger trains, 
for the purpose of saving coal. We have splendid 
passenger service and have some of the kindest and 
jolliest passenger conductors in the whole country, 
such as Spot Combs, who was born at Jackson, 
Breathitt County. 

Spot has a big heart and you will always find him 
right. Next is Conductor Bradshaw, who has al- 
ways been all right, but he is pretty fat to get about. 
He has only one son-in-law, Dick Davis, who can get 
about for him, and Dick says, "A man who has a 
father-in-law and can't use him just as well as have 
no father-in-law." Next is Conductor Atcherson, 
who is just a dandy. He is a slim fellow and can see 
anything that happens on his train. Then comes a 
small fellow with a few freckles on his face and a 
nice railroad smile, who is ready to change any time 
if required to and can suit anybody. They call him 
Conductor Bocook. 



Kentucky Mountain Life 121 

I will say with nine years of railroad experience 
they don't make any nicer conductors than the ones 
whom I have just wrote about. Then just think of 
that bunch of extra passenger conductors, Hop Dan- 
iels, wdio has a heart as big as a groundhog and he 
does his work just like Gen. Pershing does his job. 
Then comes Conductor Short, and he is just as fat 
as he is "Short." He can't get around with that extra 
smile on like Hop, but Short can get over the road. 
Then comes Conductor Tommie Hammons. He 
doesn't say very much of anything to anybody. All 
he does is just look at his time card from the time 
he leaves Lexington until he gets to McRoberts, and 
when the time card is due at McRoberts Conductor 
Hammons is there "Johnnie on the spot" with his 
train. We have another conductor who is off of the 
L. & A. and holds his seniority over some of the 
boys. The traveling public say they can tell 
just as soon as they see the engine when Conductor 
Ills is on, as the engine begins to pop off; they will 
know Conductor Ills will pop next. As to the engi- 
neers on passengers, they are the best, and the flag- 
men are just a nice set of young boys. 

There are only a very few more of the good old- 
fashioned grandmas left in Eastern Kentucky who 
hold onto the old-fashioned clothes with a large 
pocket tied to their hip to carry their old-fashioned 
pipe. 

In the above picture is old Grandmother Hughes. 
She was Cleburn Hicks' daughter, of Russell County, 
Virginia, and came to Kentucky in the year of 1866 
and was married to Mr. Hughes by David Calhoun. 
Grandma Hughes is now eighty-nine years old and 



122 



History of Corporal Fcss Whitaker 



washes every day and by hard work has saved up 
over S100 and has it in the First National Bank of 
Whitesburg, I\y.. to take care of her when she gets 
so «dd she can't work. Grandma Hughes joined the 




FRANKIE HUGHES 
Grandmother of all 



old Regular Baptist Church at the age of twenty- 
three years and lias kept the faith ever since. Every- 
body, old and young, loves her. 

I am going to close my hook very soon and 1 want 
to present to the public a small picture of my four 
brothers, whom I helped to educate. The first two 



Kentucky Mountain Life 123 

are Gid and Jim at the age of nine and seven. Gid 
is sitting down and Jim standing. They are dressed 
nj). They are barefooted, have home-made pants and 
shirts. You can see from the picture the way their 
hair looked and tell how often they got it cut. 

This tintype picture was made twenty-four years 
ago. My idea is to show the hoys' pictures in real life 
when they lived in a country undeveloped, no rail- 
roads, no business of any kind, and then I will show 
them after they have been educated and through col- 
lege. Both city and country life and Letcher County 
have grown in refinement and development and good 
morals and in langauge schools and religion, as the 
two pictures show. 

The first picture is Dr. Gid Whitaker, of Whites- 
burg, Ky., who is a successful doctor and business 
man. This picture was taken twenty-four years after 
the first. The second picture is Jim Whitaker, 
wholesale feed man, of Blackey, Ky., and pastor of 
the Indian Bottom Church, the oldest church in 
Letcher County, which was founded by James Dixon. 

F will now present to you a tintype picture of Little 
and Less, taken the same time. Yon can see very 
plainly how mother made their pants and shirts 
twenty-four years ago. I now furnish you the picture 
of Dr. Little Whitaker, of Blackey, Ky., who is a 
successful doctor and coal man. Less, when a bow 
had the asthma, and mother sent him West, where 
he was cured. I will present to you the photo <>t 
Less Whitaker, who is Assessor and Tax Collector 
of I 'otter Count}-, Texas, on the Democratic ticket 
and a real successful oil man in Oklahoma. 



124 



History of Corporal Fess Whitaker 




DR. GID WHITAKER 
Graduate 1912 



Kentucky Mountain Life 



125 




DR. LITTLE WHITAKER 
Graduate 1912 



126 



History of Corporal Fess Whitaker 




Kentucky Mountain Life 127 

T now present to you the picture of my family on 
our way from Blackey to Whitesburg on muleback 
to take charge of the county jail. You will notice 
that my wife is leading" the untie and my four chil- 
dren and a cousin to my wife, who made her home 
with us, are riding on the mule and can see very 
plainly the Jailer pushing the old mule alone;. My 
wife thinks this was the best way of getting to 
Whitesburg and she knew it was the safest way. We 
sure had a splendid trip over the land. [ did not want 
to go over the land on muleback and push a mule 
that far, but my wife said that it would be all right, 
that I would soon get used to pushing the prisoners 
up the stairs and just as well fall in line now and 
learn how to push. 

My wife's cousin is now married to P. F. Pendle- 
ton, who is time and*f)ookkeeper for the Smoot Creek 
Coal Company at Dalna. Ky. 



SKETCH OF WORK AND WORDS OF 
WOODROW WILSON. 



N 



Opening Statement. 

() BOOK is hardly complete in the year 1018 
without some part of it bearing on the great 




PRESIDENT WOODROW WILSON 

world war. It seems perfectly proper to give a few 
pages here to that subject in which all readers are of 
a right so much interested. 

The writer of this book claims to be as loyal as 
any citizen of the United States to the great Govern- 
ment which is waging war with all its might on the 
enemies of liberty. He claims to live in a section of 
the country where all the people have always felt the 
same way, and who are now doing a noble part in 
this nation's biggest task. Letcher County's hun- 
dreds of young men sent to the colors with not a word 



Kentucky Mountain Life 129 

of murmur from its citizens; her heavy oversubscrip- 
tion of every quota of every war loan and charitable 
enterprise connected with the war; her great con- 
tribution to the war industries of the nation through 
her millions of tons of "black diamonds," and the 
keen interest shown in every phase of the war in 
ever}- part of the county — all these things go to prove 
that the people who will read this book are as loyal 
as any and will be glad to have something about the 
war, along with the other things, funny and serious, 
which are offered. 

When people in every part of the country are 
doing so much to carry on the gigantic enterprise of 
the war it is but natural that they should ask, if not 
aloud, then deep down in themselves, the reason for 
it all. Why must the war go on, calling for the sacri- 
fice of the lives of many in every community, and 
added burdens of taxes, war loans and high prices of 
everything used. This is the most natural of ques- 
tions and will be asked countless times the coming 
winter and spring and summer. 

The writer of this book thinks the answer can be 
found in the Work and Words of President Wood- 
row Wilson. Therefore he takes the space and 
trouble to offer in these pages the facts and state- 
ments which sum up the matter, as he sees it. 



130 



History of Corporal fcss Whitaker 



Main Facts in Life of Woodrow Wilson. 

Woodrow Wilson was born sixty-two years ago at 

Staunton. Va. He came of tine old Virginia stock. 
the same kind which came across the mountains into 
Kentucky seventy-five years earlier. 

His earl_\' life was not greatly different from that 
of man_\- others of the same class of people who were 
well enough off to give their children a good educa- 
tion. The people among whom he lived were cul- 
tured and had high ideals of life, so that he got a 
good education, graduating at the age of twenty- 
three from Princeton College, one of the leading 
schools of the country, Ili^ opportunities were g< od 
and he took advantage of them by getting an educa- 
tion as good as the land afforded. 

Being of a studious turn of mind, he pursued his 
studies further after his graduation at the leading 
universities of the section, specializing in the study 
of law, the science of government and the great prin- 
ciples by which man lives with his fellow man. Wwc 
was the foundation work on which Woodrow Wilson 
ro^e to being the leading citizen of the world forty 
years later. 

In the years 1882 and 1SS3 he began the practice 

of law in Atlanta, Ga. But the field was too narrow 
and he soon realized that he was by nature a scholar 
and interested in broader fields than the practicing 
of the profession which had led to the careers of 
nearly all the great statesmen up to that time. In 
the period embracing the next twenty years, until he 
was well up in the forties, his time was spent as a 
teacher, author of histories and hooks on govern- 
ment and as a profound student of American affairs 



Kentucky Mountain Life 131 

By this time he was recognized as one of the lead- 
ing' educators of the whole country and as an 
authority on the history and theory of government 
of America, the leading" republic of the world. He 
was chosen head of Princeton University in 1902, in 
which position he remained until 1910, following in 
general the same lines of work and adding further 
to his reputation as an authority on state affairs. 

Only a few years ago, even since 1900, it seemed 
that our Government was falling more and more into 
the- hands of the politicians, and that the great edu- 
cators of the land were missing the mark, so far as 
their work concerned practical things. Men like 
Woodrow Wilson at Princeton University were 
thought all right as school men and authors, but too 
flighty and theoretical for governmental affairs. 
Now that is all changed in America, and the story of 
Woodrow Wilson's entry into public life and his 
undisputed success is the story of that change. 

In the years before 1910 the State of Xew Jersey 
was generally known as the home of corrupt politics 
and of rich corporations which wished to escape the 
law for their evil practices. For a long time the Re- 
publican party had been in charge of affairs. With 
the hope of winning the State election the Democrats 
nominated Professor Wilson, not because they 
wanted him especially, but because it would appeal 
to the people strongly to vote for a man who was not 
a politician and against whom not a word could be 
said. Though Xew Jersey is normally Republican 
by some thousands of votes, Wilson was elected, and 
the experiment of having a man with no political 
experience in the highest office of the State was on. 



132 History of Corporal Fcss Whitaker 

All the Nation watched to see what would happen 
— whether the professor's bookish ideas would work- 
out in a State where there were many great problems 
for the Governor to deal with. By the hardest kind 
of work and most careful treatment of each of the 
problems which came up for settlement, fitting each 
to great principles which were worked out years be- 
fore, he made a record which the people of his State 
and the people of the whole country generally de- 
cided was good. It was granted that the Wilson 
ideas would work — in a State. 

The spring of 1912 brought the campaigns for 
nominations for President. There was the big con- 
test in the Republican party between President Taft 
and ex-President Roosevelt, representing the "Stand 
Pat" and "Progressive" wings, respectively. At the 
National Convention Taft was nominated, bringing 
the split, when Roosevelt and his followers drew 
apart and founded a new party. 

When the Democratic convention came on a good 
campaign had been made for the nomination of Wil- 
son, but he lacked some hundreds of sufficient dele- 
gates to nominate. Then followed a long deadlock 
in the voting, no candidate having enough votes to 
nominate him. William Jennings Bryan turned the 
tide at the critical moment, contending that the parte 
must nominate a man unmistakably progressive in 
his ideas, or he defeated by Roosevelt in November. 
The Democrats were hardly willing to offer the Pro 
fessor to the Nation, whatever his record in New 
Jersey, and besides there were strong elements in the 
party bitterly opposed to Wilson or any other man 
known as a reformer and progressive. But there 



Kentucky Mountain Life 133 

seemed nothing else to do, and Bryan's advice pre- 
vailed — Wilson was offered to the Nation, with just 
two years of actual experience in governmental 
affairs, that in a small State! It was a thing hardly 
to be believed, without parallel in American history! 

The election of Woodrow Wilson was easy, be- 
cause of his getting more votes than either Taft or 
Roosevelt in most of the States, though he lacked 
more than a million of getting half the popular votes. 
His electoral majority was greater than that received 
by a President since Monroe. 

Everyone is familiar with the events in the life of 
W r oodrow Wilson since he was elected President in 
1912, and only the matters of greatest importance in 
bringing him into the position of head of the affairs 
of the world will be mentioned briefly under the next 
head. 

Woodrow Wilson as President. 

In practice the Government of the United States 
is run by the party in power, and in theory the Presi- 
dent of the United States is the head of the majority 
party. Such being the facts, it is the first task of a 
new President to line up the support of his own 
party. The only other Democratic President since 
the Civil War had failed utterly in this respect and 
made a poorer record than the real ability of the man 
led the people to expect. 

Many people wondered if Wilson could control 
the discordant elements in his own party after he 
took office, or if he would fail right at the beginning, 
as did Cleveland. But the doubters did not have to 
wait long. Wilson's study of our system of govern- 



134 History of Corporal < : css U'/iitakcr 

ment taught him that the President of the United 
States is the head of the party which elects him, just 
as much as he is President, and that all other loyal 
members of that party must support him on matters 

to which the party is pledged, whether it snils the 
particular tastes of any individual officer or not. He 
was careful to make it clear at the very beginning 
that the will of the people as expressed in the elec- 
tion of 1912 should be attained through the Demo- 
cratic part)', then in power, and that he would carry 
the case of any man who withheld his support in 
making good those pledges hack to his own people. 

Wilson declared that the Constitution made him 
tlie head of the executive department of the Govern- 
ment, but that through the practical working oul of 
our governmental system he was responsible for the 
acts of the legislative branch also, as the head of the 
party in power. In that sense he was the head of the 
legislative as well as the executive department From 
the day he took office and called Congress into 
special session to revise the tariff he has taken a lead- 
ing part in all legislation. It has become almost a 
proverb in this country now to speak of him as the 
schoolmaster holding the rod over the heads of the 
school of Congress. 

His first experience is typical of all the others in 
dealing with Congress. The Democrats were pledged 
to reduce the tariff to the basis of producing revenue 
only. But when Congress started working each 
member figured only for the direct interests of him- 
self and his little district, and there followed the end- 
less little bargains and swapping of support, the old 
"log-rolling-" business, ft was the same thing which. 



Kentucky Mountain Life 135 

happened under Taft in 1909, when the Republicans, 
pledged to lower the tariff, actually raised it by try- 
ing to listen to the pleas of each interest which 
wanted a particular item raised. Wilson called a 
halt. He said each Democrat must work to lower 
the whole tariff to the basis promised the people, 
which could not be done if each fellow held to his 
own pet schedule, and that if they did not follow his 
advice the name of each Congressman who was to 
blame for the failure should be made known to the 
remotest nook of the country. It worked; nearly all 
opposition passed away, and a fairly satisfactory 
downward revision was finally made. The Demo- 
crats who opposed Wilson to the end are now occu- 
pying positions in private life. 

It was so with the money legislation, railroad regu- 
lation, the trust problem and all the other many prob- 
lems which came up under Wilson's first Congress., 
so that when the two years were over a real attempt 
had been made to enact laws covering every pledge 
in 1912. To this day there has been only one failure 
to have a recommendation of Woodrow Wilson 
enacted into law, that the submission of the woman 
suffrage amendment, by the narrowest of margins; 
and even that will probably be passed before this 
book is read. It is a record for getting laws passed 
that no other President, not even Roosevelt, Ins 
equaled. 

At the beginning of Wilson's administration the 
vexing problem of Mexico, then in a state of revolu- 
tion and anarch)', was a big problem. Wilson did 
not follow the advice of those who wanted to annex 
Mexico, nor of the others who said we must keep our 



^ History of Corporal Fcss irhitakcr 

hands strictly off. lie took the position that the 
United States must deal with the problem or the 
European nations would, but held that Mexico 
should be allowed to work out her own affairs as far 
as possible. He proposed that friendly help of the 
great nation just to the north be extended, and even 
proper chastisement if she did not respect our rights 
and property on the border, but that we should take 
the smallest actual part in Mexican affairs to protect 
our own interests and insure respect for our efforts 
by other interested nations. For the rest he adopted 
the plan of waiting for Mexico to act, thereby gain- 
ing for his policy the name, well known at the time, 
of "watchful waiting." Time has shown the wisdom 
of that policy, even if we did have to send a military 
and naval expedition into Mexico and still have t<> 
keep a guard on the border, while Mexico herself 
brings order out of her confusion. 

The problems referred to briefly in the above para- 
graphs were enough to make a full program for a 
President, but with the breaking of the world war in 
Europe in 1914, all American questions became more 
or less connected, for every nation of the world in 
the Twentieth Century is pretty closely connected 
with every other. The question with us in the 
autumn of 1914 was how to carry on our affairs and 
not become involved in the war, which we looked 
upon as belonging to Europe. This was Wilson's 
problem as the head of a great peace-loving nation. 

Again our leader lived up to his policy of avoiding 
international entanglements so much that his 
"watchful waiting" reputation grew. lie insisted 
that the warring nation should fully respect our 



Kentucky Mountain Life 137 

rights as the most powerful neutral nation, and sent 
endless notes, messages and reasonable demands to 
both Great Britain and Germany. Often the results 
were slow to appear, but always the offender made 
full satisfaction. Most of the people of the United 
States came to believe that AA^ilson could go on 
seeing that we got our rights and still keep us out of 
the war. This was through the years 1914, 1915 and 
1916. 

One incident, the sinking of the British steamer 
Lusitania in May., 1915, with many prominent Amer- 
ican citizens lost, came nearest to upsetting the peace 
program. But Germany apologized, promised to 
make amends and changed her policy toward us for 
the rest of 1915 and 1916. Many people of America 
thought we should go to war at once when this ves- 
sel was sunk on the high seas, but Wilson and the 
majority decided it was better to wait. We have no 
way to know how Wilson really felt about the mat- 
ter at the time, but time has shown that the Amer- 
ican people were not ready to go into the great war 
at that time, and as the leader of the Nation it would 
have been folly for him to force us in. Democratic 
nations do not make war so. 

The election of 1916 came on. Wilson was the 
proven leader of the Democrats and was given the 
nomination by acclamation in the most harmonious 
convention the party ever held, for he was the candi- 
date and the molder of the issues at the same time. 
The breach in the Republican party was partially 
bridged over and Justice Hughes was chosen to 
oppose Wilson. The two issues in the campaign 
became Wilson's record and the attitude toward the 



138 History of Corporal Fess Whitak er 

great war. Not much could be made of the opposi- 
tion in attacking Wilson's home-affairs record, and 
the main issue became the war question. In the light 
of the prominent part Wilson is now taking in the 
pushing of the world's greatest war, it seems strange 
that he was regarded as a pacifist just two years ago. 
I Jut such was the case. Probably enough people 
believed he would and could keep us out of the war 
to elect him. On the other hand there were the many 
who saw no chance for us to keep out and were afraid 
of him as a war leader. 

But as Woodrow Wilson was great as leader of a 
peaceful nation while neutral, so when America 
became a belligerent he became at once the foremost 
of war statesmen. Xo greater tribute could be paid 
him than to say he has been the voice of over a hun- 
dred million people both in peace, and when peace 
was no longer endurable, in making war. 

When Germany announced her unlimited sub- 
marine war the last of January, 1917, on neutrals and 
enemies alike, it was plain that she no longer re- 
spected our rights, but was bent on conquering the 
world, including America, by her brute force. The 
patience of America was exhausted and she aroused 
from her peace sleep. Woodrow Wilson, their 
chosen leader, must have felt the insult and threat 
more deeply than the rest, for had he not labored to 
lus utmost for two and a half long years to avoid the 
war for America? It is true he went steadily on with 
his diplomatic moves to do what lie could, but to 
Wilson and America it was plain, from the day the 
submarines went on the high seas to kill guilt}- and 
innocent alike and the German Minister at Wash- 



Kentucky Mountain Life 139 

ing'ton was sent home, that it was only a matter of 
weeks until we would be one of a set of peace-loving 
nations in a war-mad world striking blows for our- 
selves when other means had failed. 

As America was the greatest force in the world 
not already in the war, the nations allied against 
Germany welcomed her to them in their time of great 
need. As the leader of America Wilson was given 
the opportunity to stand with the highest in Allied 
councils. But his record in America had already 
marked him as one of the ablest men in the world, 
and he was not long in proving he measured up to 
the best in Europe. Almost from the day he entered 
the war Wilson has been the spokesman for the 
Allied world. He speaks and they approve, because 
he speaks the essence of democracy and freedom for 
which the world is fighting. His voice is the loudest 
in the world ! 

We are coming now to the purpose of this sketch, 
to answer the real questioning of the average Amer- 
ican citizen, particularly of the mountains of Ken- 
tucky, about the great w r ar, in the words of Presi- 
dent Wilson. From this sketch we can see how he 
as a student of men and governments rose to the 
highest success in American affairs. The American 
ideal of government, a government of the people, is 
about to become the ideal of the civilized world. The 
words of Woodrow Wilson about the war and its 
purposes, as the spokesman for the civilized world 
and a product of democracy, will make clear what it 
is all about and what we are to get in return for our 
sacrifices. 



140 History of Corporal Fcss Whitaker 

Several selections from his war utterances, with a 
few notes of explanation of time and circumstances, 
will follow in the next division. 

Extracts From Wilson's War Speeches. 

There were many strong statements by President 
Wilson before the war began defining America's 
position and the aims she held dear. For lack of 
space we do not give any of them here, but come to 
the more striking ones after the war began. 

In the light of what has taken place we know now 
that it was never possible for America to stay per- 
manently out of the world war, and perhaps no one 
knew this better than our President. But he and we 
hoped that while we were at peace we might remain 
peaceful, not in any sense dodging our duty if na- 
tional honor called us. It should be "peace at any 
price, except the price of dishonor." 

But when it became clear beyond a doubt that we 
must go to war with the enemy of freedom and 
civilization, President Wilson called Congress into 
special session and told them in no uncertain terms 
that we must take the step. He was no longer a 
pacifist at the head of a peaceful people, but the com- 
mander-in-chief of an aroused and militant American 
manhood. The closing paragraph of his address to 
Congress, April 2, 1917, ranks with the best oratory 
of the world, yet states America's position. It fol- 
lows : 

"It is a fearful thing to lead this great peaceful 
people into w r ar, into the most terrible and disastrous 
of all wars, civilization itself seeming to be in the bal- 
ance. But the right is more precious than peace, and 



Kentucky Mountain Life 141 

we shall fight for the things which we have always 
carried nearest our hearts — for democracy, for the 
right of those who submit to authority to have a 
voice in their own governments — for the rights and 
liberties of small nations, for a universal dominion of 
right by such a concert of free peoples as shall bring 
peace and safety to all nations and make the world 
itself at last free. To such a task we can dedicate 
our lives and fortunes, everything that we are and 
everything that we have, with the pride of those who 
know that the day has come when America is privi- 
leged to spend her blood and her might for the prin- 
ciples that gave her birth - and happiness and the 
peace which she has treasured. God helping her, she 
can do no other." 

Perhaps there are those who think we still might 
have remained neutral by humbling ourselves a little, 
which would have been better than the awful de- 
struction of the war, by acting as some of the small 
nations of Europe have acted, we might have kept 
out. Perhaps we might have withdrawn our ships 
from the high seas, which belong as much to us as 
to any nation, and kept all our citizens at home, thus 
avoiding the war. This is the rallying ground of all 
the pacifists. 

To do so would have taken the strongest nation of 
the world out of any part in the affairs of the world, 
which is preposterous on the face of it. Then as 
surely as Germany conquered France and Great 
Britain, which now seems must have taken place in 
1918 but for the help of America, she would have 
taken charge of our helpless and peaceful country as 
the greatest reservoir of wealth and raw material in 



142 History of Corporal Fess Whitaker 

the world. For Germany was determined to con- 
quer the world — let there be no mistake about that. 
As we went to the war for the principles we held 
dear, so we had to meet Germany with a force greater 
than her own, the only thing- under the sun that could 
stop that war-mad nation, bent on conquest. Hear 
President Wilson on this point in his speech launch- 
ing the Third Liberty Loan at Laltimore, April 6, 
1918, for no one has put the point stronger than he: 

"I accept Germany's challenge. I know that you 
accept it. All the world shall know that you accept 
it. It shall appear in the utter sacrifice and self-for- 
getfulness with which we shall give all that we love 
and all that we have to redeem the world and make 
it fit for free men like ourselves to live in. This now 
is the meaning of all that we do. Let everything that 
we say, my fellow-countrymen, everything that we 
henceforth plan and accomplish, ring true to this 
response till the majesty and might of our concerted 
power shall fill the thought and utterly defeat the 
force of those who flout and misprize what we honor 
and hold dear. German)- has said that force, and 
force alone, shall decide whether justice and peace 
shall reign in the affairs of men, whether Right as 
America conceives it or Dominion as she conceives it 
shall determine the destinies of mankind. There is, 
therefore, but one response possible from us: Force, 
force to the utmost, force without stint or limit, the 
righteous and triumphant force which shall make 
Right the law of the world and cast every selfish 
dominion down in the dust." 

But it is well to state the precise aims for which 
we are lighting, and the satisfaction of which would 



Kentucky Mountain Life 



143 



bring- peace from us. In general we are fighting for 
the American principles of freedom and justice and 
are combating Germany's force with greater force 
as a means of self-protection. But there is the bigger 
program of applying these principles to world affairs, 
so that all nations and peoples shall be free and live 
in peace after the war is over forever. But the case 
can be stated more precisely than this. 

As the spokesman for the nations allied against 
Germany, President Wilson announced fourteen 
terms on which we would be willing to make peace 
last winter. Six of them have to do with general 
conditions which will apply to all nations alike: 
freedom of the seas, reduction of armies, open 
treaties, equal trade conditions for all nations, 
colonial claims, and a league to enforce peace and 
settle disputes between nations. The other eight 
provide for changes in boundaries or governments, 
one or both, in France, Belgium, Italy, Germany, 
Austria, Turkey, Russia, Poland, and the Balkan 
States on a basis of freedom and justice to the people 
of each country. It is the program on which peace 
will finally be made and guarantees that the "world 
will be made safe for democracy." The program is 
too long to state here in its original form. 

Many times later Wilson has made further state- 
ments bearing on our war aims. Some of these state- 
ments are brief and clear enough to be put down here, 
since they are another way of stating the fourteen 
peace conditions. In addressing Congress Februarv 
11, 1918, the President said they could be put under 
four heads, as follows: 



144 History of Corporal Fcss Whit a k c r 

"First — Each part of the final settlement must be 
based upon essential justice to bring a permanent 
peace. 

"Second — Peoples and provinces are not to be bar- 
tered about like chattels to establish a balance of 
power. 

"Third — Territorial settlements must be for the 
benefit of the peoples concerned and not for the ad- 
justment of rival States' claims. 

"Fourth — Well-defined national aspirations must 
be accorded the utmost satisfaction." 

At no time has the President made a finer state- 
ment of the issues involved in the war than in his 
speech of September 27, 1918, in opening the Fourth 
Liberty Loan at New York. It must be quoted some- 
what at length, with the idea that it is a further 
definition and application of the fourteen terms of 
peace. It can best be given in Wilson's own words: 

"We accept the issues of the war as facts, not as 
any group of men here or elsewhere lias defined them, 
and we cannot accept any outcome which does not 
squarely meet and settle them. The issues are these: 

" 'Shall the military power of any nation or group 
of nations be suffered to determine the fortunes of 
peoples over whom they have no right to rule, except 
the right of force? 

'" 'Shall strong nations be free to wrong weak na- 
tions and make them subject to their purpose and 
interest? 

" 'Shall peoples be ruled and dominated, even in 
their own internal affairs, by arbitrary and irrespon- 
sible force or bv their own will and choice? 



Kentucky Mountain Life 



145 



' 'Shall there be a common standard of right and 
privilege for all peoples and nations, or shall the 
strong do as they will and the weak suffer without 
redress? 

' 'Shall the assertion of right be haphazard and by 
casual alliance, or shall there be a common concert 
to oblige the observance of common rights?' 

"But these general terms do not disclose the whole 
matter. Some details are needed to make them sound 
less like a thesis and more like a practical program. 
These, then, are some of the particulars, and I state 
them with greater confidence because I can state 
them authoritatively as representing this Govern- 
ment's interpretation of its own duty with regard to 
peace: 

' 'First — The impartial justice meted out must 
involve no discrimination. It must be a justice that 
plays no favorites and knows no standard but the 
equal rights of all the peoples concerned. 

' 'Second — Nc> special or separate interest of any 
single nation or any group of nations can be made 
a basis of any part of the settlement which is not con- 
sistent with the common interests of all. 

" 'Third — There shall be no leagues or alliance or 
special covenants and understandings with the gen- 
eral and common family of the league of nations. 

' 'Fourth — There shall be no special, selfish com- 
binations in the league, except as penalty by exclu- 
sion from the markets of the world may be vested in 
the league of nations itself, as a means of discipline 
and control. 



14(3 



History of Corporal Fess Whitaker 



" 'Fifth — All international treaties and agreements 
of any kind must be made known, in their entirety, 
to the rest of the world.' " 

President Wilson has repeatedly laid emphasis on 
the statement that this is a war of the people for uni- 
versal human rights, as much as a war of nations for 
national ends. Xotiee this extract from the same 
September 27, 1918, address at Xew York: 

"This war has positive and well-defined purposes 
which we did not determine and which we cannot 
alter. Xo statesman or assembly created them: no 
statesman or assembly can alter them. They have 
arisen out of the very nature and circumstances of 
the war. The most that statesmen or assemblies can 
do is to carry them out or be false to them. They 
were perhaps not clear at the outset, but they are 
clear now. 

"The war has lasted more than four years and the 
world has been drawn into it. The common will of 
mankind has been substituted for the particular pur- 
poses of individual States. Individual statesmen may 
have started the conflict, but neither they nor their 
opponents can sir.]) it as they please. It has become 
a people's war, and peoples of all sorts and races, of 
every degree of power and variety of fortune, are 
involved in its sweeping processes of change and 
settlement." 

President Wilson has repeatedly taken the stand 
that all autocratic rule by a king or small group of 
men must end in every country as a necessary result 
of this war. It is well known that the Kaiser and his 
little group of army leaders educated, armed and 
trained Germany to conquer the world through forty 



Kentucky Mountain Life 147 

long years, and then deliberately set in motion the 
war machine they had created in the summer of 1914. 
Our President says as a necessary term of peace that 
all possibility of such a thing ever happening again 
must be removed by blotting out the cause. Among 
other results to be attained before there can be a 
peace, there is this remarkable statement, in a 
patriotic address at Mt. Vernon, July 4, 1918: 

''The destruction of every arbitrary power any- 
where that can separately, secretly and of its single 
choice disturb the peace of the world; or, if it cannot 
be presently destroyed, at the least, its reduction to 
virtual powerlessness." 

The above statements of terms are ample and 
cover all the points which may arise out of the war. 
There has been repeated and free discussion of them 
in this country and Europe, and Mr. Wilson himself 
has not lost an opportunity to explain their meaning 
in his own matchless way. There is now no doubt 
of their meaning or that the United States will 
struggle for them until they are facts. Yet out of 
them arises a big question as to the length of the war. 

As early as February, 1918, Germany announced 
that she could accept the fourteen principles laid 
d< iwn by Wilson in the address of February 11. Many 
other times since Germany has intimated that she 
could accept the Wilson terms and was ready to open 
negotiations leading to peace. These hints have been 
many since the war turned for the Allies in the sum- 
mer of 1918. Yet no negotiations have been entered 



148 History of Corporal Fess JJ'hitaker 

into up to the middle of October, 1918, as this is fin- 
ished. Many may wonder why there was not peace 
when the enemy is ready to discuss with us our own 
announced terms. Wilson himself has answered on 
this point many times, most strikingly in his answer 
to the Pope's offer to make peace in August, 1917, 
and in the address of September 27, 1918. The fol- 
lowing is quoted from the latter address: 

"We are all agreed that there can be no peace ob- 
tained by any kind of bargain or compromise with 
the governments of Germany and her allies, because 
we have dealt with them already, and have seen them 
deal with Russia and Rumania. They have convinced 
us thai the}- are without honor and do not intend 
justice. They observe no covenants, accept no prin- 
ciple but force and their own interest. We cannot 
'come to terms' with them. They have made it im- 
possible. The German people must by this time be 
fully aware that we cannot accept the word of those 
who forced this war upon us. We do not think the 
same thoughts or speak the same language of agree- 
merit. 

"It is of capital importance that we should also be 
explicitly agreed that no peace shall be obtained by 
any kind of compromise or lessening of the princi- 
ples which Ave have avowed as the principles for 
which we are fighting. There should exist no doubt 
about that." 

Finally on October 12, 1918, Germany sent a 
message to President Wilson saying the}- were will- 
ing to accept all the terms he had laid down, and 



Kentucky Mountain Life 



149 



asked that he take the matter up with the Allies and 
arrange with German representatives the terms of an 
armistice to stop the fighting while peace was being- 
made. This has always been the regular procedure, 
and coming from any nation but Germany would 
have meant that the war was over. President Wil- 
son immediately answered the proposal, and never 
has he spoken with greater power or clearness than 
when speaking straight to the arch-enemy for the 
first time since war started. If he had not estab- 
lished himself long ago as the champion spokesman 
for the liberty of mankind, this message would give 
him the place. The three main points are here given, 
but the writer has taken the liberty to add the num- 
bers and put them in different order: 

1. "The President's word just quoted (the extract 
from the Mt. Vernon speech quoted above) naturally 
constitutes a condition precedent to peace, if peace is 
to come by the action of the German people them- 
selves. The President feels bound to say that the 
whole process of peace will, in his judgment, depend 
upon the definiteness and the satisfactory character of 
the guarantees which can be given in this funda- 
mental matter." 

2. "It must be clearly understood that the process 
of evacuation (of territory Germany had conquered) 
and the conditions of an armistice are matters which 
must be left to the judgment and advice of the mili- 
tary advisers of the United States and the allied gov- 
ernments, and the President feels it his duty to say 
that no arrangement can be accepted by the Govern- 
ment of the United States which does not provide 



150 History of Corporal Fess Whitaker 

absolutely satisfactory safeguards and guarantees of 

the maintenance of the present military supremacy 
of the United States and the Allies on the field." 

3. "The President also feels that it is his duty to 
add that neither the Government of the United States 
nor, he is quite sure, the governments associated 
with the United States, will consent to consider an 
armistice so long as the armed forces of Germany 
continue the illegal and inhumane practices which 
they still persist in." 

It cannot be known surely what the outcome may 
be when this is being finished, but it is plain that 
President Wilson decreed the end of the Kaiser and 
his wicked system, demanded a surrender such that 
Germany could never make war again and in which 
she had no part in the arrangement, and served 
notice on them once for all that they must stop their 
hellish practices in the lands they held captive, infer- 
ring that punishment would be meted to them tor 
what had already been done. 

Whether they submit now or a month from now 
or a year from now the terms of peace are known, 
and they exist in the words of our own President 
Wilson. The end of the old German system is at 
hand, and the reign of peace in a world of freedom 
is just ahead. America and her brave Allies, at the 
price of the blood of their millions of young men, 
have put right and justice in a free and peaceful 
world as the rule by which nations must live in the 
future, and Woodrow Wilson has translated that 
ideal into burning words which will live forever. 






Kentucky Mountain Life lo1 

An Estimate of Wilson as a Statesman. 

As Woodrow Wilson has already proven a tower 
of strength in the time of the world's greatest need, 
his opportunities for greatest service are just ahead. 
The whole world trusts him and looks to him in the 
final arrangements of world affairs at the end of the 
war. There is no doubt that he will measure up to 
this greatest opportunity ever accorded a human 
being to dispose of the destinies of all mankind. Un- 
doubtedly he will be the head of the League of 
Nations which in the future is to take the place of all 
wars and insure justice to all peoples. 

Woodrow Wilson is a product of America. No 
other country could have produced him. He is a 
Democrat — a product of democracy. Also he is 
America's first great contribution to the list of truly 
world statesmen. America's democracy has been 
called to the front in the breakdown of all the old 
systems together in the cataclysm of world war. and 
she offers a leader who embodies in his life the prin- 
ciple for which the world travails. 

Lincoln was raised up by Almighty God to bring 
America through her great trial of internal strife to 
a new birth of freedom; just as truly He raised up 
Wilson to pilot America through her struggle with 
a foreign foe, and made him the leading exponent of 
the principles at stake. Such men appear at great 
stress periods. Let us be thankful. 

A Kentucky poet, Cale Young Rice, has paid a 
touching tribute to Mr. Wilson, and there seems no 
more appropriate way to close this sketch and esti- 
mate of our beloved leader than to quote his little 
poem : 



^ History of Corporal Fcss Mliitakcr 

To President Wilson. 
"Woodrow Wilson, master of patience, 

Master of silence, master of speech; 

Master amid the world's war-frenzy 
Of clear wisdom's inward reach; 
Watcher of raging* civilizations 
Till the one righteous hour arrives 
When yon can speak for all nations. 

Great is your guidance now that shrives 

Both friend and foe from base soul-gyves. 

"Woodrow Wilson, lofty listener 
At the great heart of Destinv; 
Hearing above all feverous hatred 

Justice breathing what should be; 

Still for a peace that shall not perish 

Stand — for if ever a Providence 

Comes to the Universe to nourish 

Men in their woe, and lead them hence, 
X'ear us now is its Immanence!" 



